Learning to love others is part and parcel with what it means to follow Jesus. The command to love God is organically fused with the command to love our neighbors (people).

God has even given us examples in the created world around us of what that looks like practically. If we fail to love others like Jesus has commanded, we've failed to love God the way He desires.

The following based on work by Dr. Robert McNeish 

Fact:

As each goose flaps its wings it creates an “uplift" effect for the birds that follow. By flying in a "V" formation, the whole flock adds 71% greater flying range than if each bird flew alone.

For us:
People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going quicker and easier because they are traveling on the thrust of one another.

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Fact:

Ever have days or weeks that leave you wondering if the floor will drop out from under you, or the sun will scorch you the next time you step outside? We had one last week. On Monday, my wife asked me if we had been undergoing an ‘inordinate amount’ of trials and challenges recently. My answer: “Nah.”

By Friday, I had changed my mind.

Monday – We got news that my 80+ year-old father-in-law hurt himself in the garage, and my mother-in-law couldn’t help him. He cut his head open, and he’s on Coumadin (which thins your blood and makes you bleed easily). It took my sister-in-law (the closest person to them) to drive over, get him to the hospital, and be checked out by the doctors.

Tuesday – the small leak in our basement from a possible bathroom pipe now becomes a puddle and a stream. After each shower, toilet, or sink usage in the main bath, sponges and towels need to be applied to clean it all up. Plumber called.

Also, I get a ‘past due’ bill on a charge that was paid for back in March, but the company cannot figure out how or where. I am left to call voice mails and write letters (again) to tell them I will not pay (again).

Wednesday – The plumber rips out a section of wall from floor to ceiling in the kitchen to get to the 78 year-old main outflow pipe coming from the bathroom upstairs. House is a mess, but pipe is replaced and problem repaired.

I also discover that night that at the bank we were transferring all our money away from to a second bank, they accepted some electronic withdrawals I missed in my preparation of the switch, resulting in charges of $200+. Up till after midnight re-checking all finances for any other loopholes missed.

Thursday – the 55 year-old upstairs toilet seal was broken in the process of fixing the main pipe, so now it’s leaking into the kitchen as well. Another call to the plumber.

Friday – I step barefooted onto a rusty nail that was missed in the clean up after the fixing of the pipes.

By Saturday, I just wanted to lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. What a week. And that’s not including the normal litany of teenage arguments, family meetings, soccer and ballet practices, and the normal chaotic behaviors of family life.

In the midst of this, I was exploring in my time with Jesus how God was not only my Creator, but my sustainer as well. Psalm 18: “Your right hand sustains me”. He is both creator and sustainer, and his gifts are even bigger in scope than we realize. Hebrews 1:3b: “He sustains the universe by the mighty power of his command.” What’s that phrase about doing something with one hand tied behind my back? I found the weight and worry of my situation was reduced by the reminder of just how powerful, providing, and loving the Lord truly is. God’s power to provide is incredible.

I also reflected on the ‘gifts’ we often receive from God. Do you realize that everything in our lives is a gift from the Father—even the things we don’t want and didn’t ask for? Yes, that the minutia of contests like broken plumbing pipes or foot injuries. As part of my exercises, I made a list of things I am thankful or grateful for. Most of them were positive experiences, relationship, or characteristics. Only a few were situations that in the onset induced great pain before eventually becoming more stable and developmental. Injuries, relational hurts, or deeply felt losses were for the most part not on the list.

What does that say in terms of how we view what we’re thankful for – especially if those very things were items God used to draw us close to Him, to expose our rogue state of hearts, to reveal his tremendous grace in an even more startling way? My guess is that we often receive “gifts” that might come disguised as problems, crises, or accidents—despite our impulse response to deflect, minimize, or avoid it.

While I wish those things on nobody, can we arrive at a state where, as these events intrude upon us, and as we course through them, we can be content and at peace?

Can we be in a state where we can rest in the presence of the Lord, come hell or, in my case, high water?

I recently started with a new small group-spiritual growth pathway Pastor Brian oversees called the Ignatian Exercises (I’ll call it IX for short). I am excited about my IX group, and what I really like is that for once, I am just a member. I think my IX leader is great, and I’m looking forward to the journey that awaits me and the other members.

The focus of our time involves an intense, vigorous reflection of our inner life – the stuff below the waterline. Using some of the methods and reflections of Ignatius of Loyola, our aim is to plumb the depths of our soul and seek a closer, more transparent and transforming walk with Jesus Christ in the process. By identifying the competing desires and habits of the heart, and gazing into the great love of God, we hope to experience a changed focus, changed heart, and a changed life.

But the process is not for the faint of heart. While it is tempting to have “safe” discussions about Christians in general, glossy ideas from scripture, or vague allusions to “unspoken requests or need”—these are not what we are going to do. Instead, our aim is to be brutally honest with ourselves and our group members, and undergo the awkward moments of personal exposure and disclosure to discover a God at work behind the scenes.

Our first exercise over last week was to take stock of our soul—identify the condition of our “condition.” Mine came with sobering scrutiny. Some of my journaled words included disconcerting adjectives like: disconnected, fragmented, discouraged, undisciplined, preoccupied, and distracted. But that was just the beginning.

As I reflected, I sensed a variety of sentiments swirling around the darker recesses of my consciousness: a wanting of more; an unsettled sense on some directional issues; a knowing that God is good and in charge—but not seeing that translated into personal experience; a wanting to do more and be more – but not seeing what it is, and not knowing the cost involved to make it so.

In the Matrix, Neo is asked if he’d like to take the blue pill or the red pill. Take the blue pill, he is told, and all will be forgotten, and he will blissfully go back from whence he came into a state of continuing mental anaesthesia. Take the red pill, and his life will unalterably be different. He will be awake and alive, full of both the thrills and pain of an animated existence. But he can escape the trappings of a vegetative state that he exists in now.

I think I just swallowed the red pill.

I reflected on what I want in my relationship with Christ, the thing(s) I desired most with Him. That was not such a difficult exercise. I thought about that for a while, made my list and wrote a few things down, then stared at it.

The problem came when I realized what I was asking, and what I brought to the table. I had nothing to offer to make that list anywhere closer to reality than where it was now – notes on a page. I was the proverbial cowboy, surrounded by Indians, and out of ammo.

It’s as if I was a man staring at blueprints of a gorgeous spacious mansion with only a $1.50 in my pocket to pay for it. It seemed like the impossible desire.

But then that’s what faith is – look at the most impossible thing, and head that way. Faith tells me that I am incapable, but with God, all things are possible. Faith says that the thing my heart most wants, intimacy and connection with Christ, I can have—but that I will need to let go of all that I clutch that stands in the way. Faith says that I cannot embark on this voyage with any possibility of success—only by entrusting myself to God in more thorough and comprehensive ways will I find what I seek. But faith says that God is excited and delighted for me to travel this road, and He will empower me to make it to my destination.

As I embark on this journey into the depths of my soul, as well as into the heart of God, I am hopeful that as I come across and am confronted by the varying temptations and distractions of my heart, they will be moments to encounter Jesus, and undergoing his fiery crucible of love to make me more of a man than I am today.