Love your neighbor as yourself.

Okay, so I avoided posting this, but since I talked about the topic today with my advisor, and Zalm and his friend posted on it, I guess it's time to process my own journey with this topic.

Here is the invitation of Jim:

Here's where you come in. I invite you to share your reaction to the following statement, as well as your thoughts regarding the juxtaposition of this statement with.. Philippians 2 Ready? Here goes:

To love others you must first love yourself.

For the past two and half odd years, I have been on an incredible journey. It has been scary and rocky. God basically took who I thought I was and showed me that it was all an illusion. Through a painful bout of depression, I began to see that I truly did not know God very well, and even more so, I hated myself. I felt as if God didn't love me because I hadn't really even tried to seek him out in a long time. I regained a lot of weight (and still have it). I went from being a die hard RepubliChristian to something that I'm not quite sure of yet. I became a psychologist and theologian. I left all I knew with my relatively new husband to come 700 miles away to the Artic Chicago winters. And God somehow finally got me to listen.

So, lately, I've really been struggling with why I feel so discombobulated with myself. I feel stuck between Brandon's Ethic of Outrage and feeling called to graciousness. So I went to see said advisor above. He's an amazing person. They type of guy who can say, "Grace to you, grace to you, grace to you." and it not sound hokey, contrived, or odd.

So, today, Derek and I were talking about what pisses me off so much about people like Slice of Laodicea and this guy, too. I want to be a person of grace, if I cannot be love these neighbors, then how can I think myself any different than they are?

The question becomes, who is my neighbor? The story of the Samaritan, who is the neighbor? I cannot be a neighbor to someone else by my own strength. I will fail. It becomes arrogance, if we attempt to love our neighbor of our own accord. It takes God's strength and provision to reflect the character of Philippians 2.

But why am I feeling so completely unneighborly these days? And the answer is, that I myself do not accept that God accepts me. It is not that I must love myself in order to love others. No, it is that I must know that I am loved in order to love others. This type of love goes way beyond the self love of psychology.

James Bryan Smith says it much better in his book, Embracing the Love of God.

God's love comes down to us, fills our hearts, and is then extended to our neighbor. When we know and feel and experience God's love, we cannot but love ourselves. This kind of self-love is nothing like the cheap form of narcissism peddled in our culture. IT is a genuine, comprehensive kind of love that is based not on what we do but on who we are.

When this love begins to penetrate our hearts, it will naturally flow out to those around us. Loving one another will be less difficult and more natural. When we realize we have been accepted as we are, we are enabled to accept others s they are. When we grasp that we have been forgiven for all that we have done, we find that we are empowered to forgive others for what they have done. When we comprehend that we are valued and cared for by God, we are provided the means to value and care for others.

So much of my own stuckness with others, such as the irritating bloggers that I mentioned earlier, stems from the fact that I feel that these people reject ideas, feelings, and God callings that are central to who I am. And because my parents are in some ways doing that very thing, I do not feel acceptance. My earthly parents cannot affirm me as I need. They fail over and over again, because they are human. It hurts that my mom does not want to read my husband's blog because, "I like my son in law, and I don't want that to change."

So, where do I get the unconditionally accepting parent that I so desperately long for and need? From accepting God's love. I make God in my own image, instead. I feel that nothing I do is good enough, right enough, etc. for God to love me the way in which I desire.

It is the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives that makes us capable of even accepting God's love, His ultimate acceptance of us. Romans 5:5 states, "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us." It is the Holy Spirit, God within us, Love within us, that whispers that we are God's beloved. Unconditionally accepted, given a gift we did not earn, a gift that cannot be lost.

Only once I accept that God loves me ultimately and deeply, can I sit with difficult and hurting people. When I let the Holy Spirit move me to love, I can affirm the true seed of who people are, and not all the pompous fluff that they present and that offends. I can say to bigots, haters, etc. etc., "I know that you are afraid. You do not accept that you are accepted by God. Love is not in your presence because you will not embrace it. For Love casts out all fear. I have been there. I am there. I will be there. Let us share THIS so that we may embrace the Love of the Father."

The opposite of Love is not hate or anger, it is indifference and fear. So, that is why my advisor said to me over and over again today, as I cried, "Grace to you, grace to you, grace to you." I must accept that God loves me and wants me home and accepts me, like the prodigal and his elder brother. And once I accept God's love and KNOW it..then I can become like the Father (God, and as in the story of the prodigal).

We are all called to become the father in the story of the prodigal, dispensers of grace through the Holy Spirit, who is God's Love within in us.

So, no, we do not have to abandon righteous anger. For Love and Anger are not opposites. As my advisor said, "If you abandon your anger when it is righteous, you lose your prophetic voice. Your family argues with you because they sense that you are strong enough to do so, and they are not indifferent toward you. They sense there is something to what you have to say, or else they wouldn't come back for more."

So.."Grace to you, Grace to you, Grace to you."