Third Grade in Jesus I. God Elementary

From Romans 12:9, The Message:

Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it.


OK, so here's the deal.  I always want to love people.  But I've always thought I had to be someone else in order to do it.


As I sit here and think about it, I really do this with everyone -- family, friends, acquaintances.  People love me until they get to know me -- then I'm a very difficult wife, mom, daughter, friend . . . you get the idea.  The answer?  For me it's always been to be someone I'm not.  Someone happy, balanced, fun to be around, and completely different than the real me.


Of course this quickly disintegrates into me being myself again, usually because I just forget what I was doing (and I'm honest to a fault).  Most of the time I was doing it subconsciously anyway.  The result is that all these people around me look at me and say "who are you?  What happened to that person we liked so much?  Why don't you love me like you did when you were happy, balanced, and fun to be around?"


At first, years and years ago, I wondered what the heck they were talking about.  And then I realised what it was, and resolved that I was going to have very few people like me in life no matter how much I loved them.  They'd never get me -- who really believes a sad, angry, depressed person loves them?  Seriously?


Well, thank God for getting older!  Age mellows us, and in my case, medication works wonders!  I wish I were not crazy.  But it is "the center of who I am," so there you go.  And also at the center of who I am, I really do love all those people whom I disappoint.  What I've also realised is that I actually am happy, balanced, and fun to be around.  That truly is a part of who I am.  Also a part is all that depressing stuff.  Do I sound like a normal person?  Imagine that.  


I know it is a frightening thought that you are reading this and thinking "gosh, I'm more like her than I thought."  Be afraid.  Be very afraid.  


OK, so you probably aren't crazy and need medication.  But we all have our moments, don't we?  We all go up and down.  It's just that some of us go more up and more down than others.


The upshot of all of this is that to love someone from the center of who you are requires some honesty.  Some looking in the mirror and both accepting who I am and who I can be.  Some amount of accepting that people will both like me and not like me.  Isn't that really the point anyway?  Be who we are, and strive to be like Jesus.  The endless struggle of the Christian life.


In conclusion (to end this sermon/rant), I'd like to charge you with this task:  stop trying to be someone you're not.  Loving from the center of who you are is easy if Jesus is at the center.  Stop trying so hard.  Just do it.  Good things will happen that you don't have to make happen by your own human effort.  Once again, the whole "God is in control" idea comes around and smacks us.


I will never learn.  So it's good I'm a lifelong learner, right?  Ah, life in the third grade of  "be like God" school.  Hopefully someday I will graduate to fourth grade and get to do the spiritual equivalent of long division. . .