Love Walked Among Us

I suppose, on some level, we all recognize love as a central theme in our lives. We seek to find it, give it, immerse ourselves in it to one degree or another. We have our closest of relationships whom we often refer to as our 'loved ones.' 

Do you ever wonder what that makes everyone else? 

On a serious note, we'd all have to admit we struggle to love even our 'loved ones' at times.  

What I've found in seeking to love is how easily I swing from one extreme to another.  I want to be compassionate but sometimes my compassion only encourages people to be dopey and I can't see anything about letting my loved one be dopey that is actually and truly loving.  Yet, on the other extreme, I've proven to myself and far too many of my friends that 'adjusting' folks in the name of love can be a relational minefield, difficult to walk through at best and life destroying at worst. 

I need help to love.  I struggle deeply to really love people I actually do care about.  And what of the others, the masses I touch everyday in the workplace, classroom, on the street and in traffic, at the grocery store and the play ground.  I'm called to love them too.  


A great lover of people named Jesus once said, 


"Love your enemies. Bless those that curse you. Pray for those that use you." 


If that seems like a rough row to hoe, you're certainly not alone.  Thanks to Paul Miller and his tremendous book, Love Walked Among Us, we have great help in figuring out how to do just that. 

What is so awesome about this book, subtitled, 'Learning to Love Like Jesus,' is that the author, and his superb Subject, don't teach us how to love with words alone but by their action. This book helps us to realize that Jesus' life was not just a life of wise and loving words, it was a life of sacrificial loving action, action he took in the lives of people great or small, young or old, friend or foe.  Jesus was about the business of actively loving people.

Paul masterfully walks us through the last three years of Jesus life on earth showing us how Jesus was, in his flesh, the embodiment of love. 

Weaved throughout the book, mingled with the stories about Jesus' life, are Paul's own stories of love - real life, contemporary stories of a real man seeking to love in the most trying of circumstances.  Paul's honesty is beyond bold, it is at times shocking as he reveals his own fear and weakness.  Particularly moving and challenging is his portrayal throughout the book of what it means for his family to love their daughter, Kim, who struggles with speechlessness, anxiety, and other behavioral issues brought on by severe autism. 

Experience, and failure in particular, are good teachers for those who choose to learn.  Holding himself up for comparison against the flawless love of Jesus may not be the best way for Mr. Miller to look good before his readership but it is a great way to teach us, his readers, what real love looks like in the day to day life of weak people like you and me. 


This book would not have helped me much if it had simply revealed Jesus as a great example.  What this book taught me was to love Jesus, to revere him, to adore and worship him.  
  
Loving like Jesus loved is a high ideal, one we cannot attain by human effort.  However, if loving Jesus is the fastest track to loving like Jesus loved, and I believe it is, then this book has real potential to change the world. 

Read this book. Learn to love Jesus!  Then you will begin to learn to love like Jesus. It will definitely transform your life. 

The Invisible Hand

I had just pulled my car into the garage and stepped out of it when the door to the kitchen opened and my daughter, Sherrie, appeared. Her face was ashen, and there was a look of horror in her eyes. She rushed into my arms, blurting out the words,

"Oh, Daddy! My baby is dead!"

I held her against my chest as she sobbed and sobbed.

As a dad with a daughter and now a few grandchildren, I'd have to say this paragraph was as attention grabbing as any first paragraph of any novel I've ever read. 

But...this is no novel. This is the first paragraph of a book about theology, the theology about God's providence in the lives of ordinary people in suffering. Sherrie is the real-life daughter of author and theologian R.C. Sproul and the story of the lose of his daughter's child, his own grandchild, is as faith shaking at first blush as it is riveting. 

What can anyone say to a loved one who has just experienced such a loss?

Like anyone acquainted with evangelical Christianity, I have known Dr. Sproul as a well known and respected theologian. Until I read this book, aptly subtitled, Do all things really work together for good?, I had no idea what a marvelous story teller and writer he is. I was a little surprised but actually very comforted by the incredible intensity he brings to this Biblically honest yet empathetic study of what it is that is really going on behind the scenes when human beings suffer. 

"Because God is invisible to us, we often fail to see his active presence in human affairs."

The Invisible Hand is good theology but it is not just good theology. This book "is designed...chiefly from the examination of concrete experiences of the flesh-and-blood people..." 

From the heart breaking tales of pain experienced by Moses, Jacob, and Joseph to the worst train wreck in the history of Amtrak, the crash of the Sunset Limited, Sproul recognizes the "horrible tragedy" that such events are on the human plane of history, yet he faithfully reminds us of the vertical plane, a plane on which there are no accidents, a plane on which all things work together for good. 

If you remain confused, hurt, astonished by stuff that is happening to you, your family, your friends...read this book. 

It may just... Change Your Life!