Sacrificial Love

“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

Jesus is talking here in the upper room the evening before his death. He is expressing his love for His disciples telling them the full extent of His love. This was no mere abstraction or theory; He was about to lay down His life for them to pay for their sins so that they and we could be forgiven.

In this passage Jesus also tells us something significant about relationships. That is the greatest and best relationships are not about you but about the other person. Also that genuine love is self-sacrificing.

We live in a “me first” society. If you want something you better get it for yourself because no one is going to give it to you. Life is about “me, myself, and I.” Sometimes we grow up thinking that if we don’t take care of ourselves no one else is going to. We bring this attitude into our relationships and decide that it’s all about me. For many people friendships, dating and even marriage are about what the other person can do for me. How does he or she make me happy? What benefits do I get hanging around with him? What can she do for me? What can he give me? What do I get out of this?

Relationships like this degenerate into two people trying to get the most for themselves from the other person. Ultimately this is a recipe for disaster. I was talking to a friend recently about this and I told him, “What would happen in a relationship if both people said, ‘this relationship is not about me, it is about the other person.’ Further, both people said, ‘I am going to give 100% to meet the needs of the other person and not my own needs.’” Suddenly, each person is trying their hardest to meet the other person’s needs and not his own. The result is that each person receives the satisfaction of caring for another person and as a result his own needs end up being met by the other person.

Let me share an illustration, when I was 19 I decided I needed to go to college full time to pursue my degree in theology. I was broke and saw no way I’d ever be able to get to school. A friend suggested a school in Indiana. When I visited the campus the financial aid administrator was downright rude. He told me that I was just out of luck and that there was nothing they could do. There was no way I’d ever get through school. In one meeting my dreams were shattered and I was devastated. I left alone and dejected.

To make matters worse, there was a concert on campus that night and all the students, including my friends who I was staying with, were going. They forgot to buy a ticket for me. They suggested I go anyway and buy a ticket at the door. We stood in line for an hour before hearing that the concert was sold out. The friends suggested I go back to the dorm and they would meet me later. It was too much to bear. I started to walk away even more depressed than before.

Just then a guy in front of us turn around. “I couldn’t help hearing that you didn’t have a ticket to the concert. I would like to give you my ticket. I’ve seen this artist in concert before, I would like you to have it.” I didn’t know what to say. I was dumbfounded. Here was a guy that I had never met, I don’t even know his name, and he wants to give me his ticket to the concert. Why? What would motivate someone to do something like that? There was nothing I could give him in return. Sure, I would give him money for the ticket if he would accept it but why would he miss the concert for me? Reluctantly I accepted. That stranger in a moment spoke more to me than 100 sermons. I understood more about love and sacrifice in that instant than years of Sunday School lessons.

Imagine a world where people thought about others and not themselves. Imagine a friendship or marriage where this occurred regularly. Jesus’ death was full payment for our sins as our substitute. He was also the greatest example of love, an example we must learn to follow. From now on, think about your spouse, or your friends and decide to not be in it for what you can get but for what you can give. This is the essence of sacrificial love.

Baby Grace Update - July 23

Dear Friends,

I just wanted to give you the latest on Grace as we continue with the pregnancy. There is mixed news with this report. Nothing horribly bad but there is cause for prayer and continued concern.

First the positive side, Grace's heart condition seems to be stable. We have had four echocardiograms so far and they have all showed consistent results. There continues to be a slow count on the lower chambers of her heart due to the Sjorgren's antibody. There are none of the other potential concerns that we feared. It seems that her heart condition will remain stable for the rest of the pregnancy. Things are going so well in this area that they said instead of having and echo every week we could wait a month.

However, during our ultrasound yesterday they noticed that the fluid was low. This coupled with their not seeing her lungs moving in a breathing motion caused them to recommend that we come in at least three times a week for an ultrasound. He suggested we could come in every day for an ultrasound if we preferred. It is not always expected to see the baby "breathing" at 28 weeks but by 32 weeks they will look for it every time they do an ultrasound. It also looks like they will have a daily ultrasound after that time. For the next two weeks we will go in on Monday/Wednesday/Friday for an ultrasound. Between those visits Jenn is to do a "baby kick count." This is a typical procedure where she counts how many distinct movements she feels in an hour. There should be at least ten kicks an hour. If there is not we are to go to the hospital for an immediate check up. My sense is that the ultrasounds are precautionary rather than an indication of a life-threatening condition.

I will keep you posted regularly via this web log as well as email to anyone who asks. Please be in prayer for this situation. Jenn and I are doing well otherwise except for my foot and living out of boxes because of the move. One more week and everything will be settled (I hope). We have most off the rooms set up already!!!

Broken Foot

Sometimes things don't turn out like you planned them. I was gone last week to a friend's wedding in Ohio. Jenn couldn't go because of complications in the pregnancy that have been ongoing for the last eight weeks. We were planning on moving soon anyway so I figured I'd orchestrate the move while Jenn was working.

Everything went as planned until the last item that needed to be moved. It was the largest and heaviest item so we waited until last. Also, I wanted to make sure that it wouldn't get damaged in the move. As we were walking down the stairs I stepped off the last stair to the ground. Unfortunately the ground was not level because the blacktop has sunk 1 1/2 inches lower than the cement over the years. Half of my foot was on the cement while the other half was suspended in the air. The combined weight of my mass coupled with the weight of the furniture was catastrophic. When I stepped my foot and ankle rolled and I hear a snap, crackle and a pop. Okay actually it was more like a pop and grinding.

I dropped the furniture (no, it is undamaged) and immediately dropped to the ground in perhaps the most excruciating pain of my life. In time the pain subsided and I was able to hobble over to the car. A friend drove me to the new house and another friend drove me to urgent care. I was referred to a specialist who confirmed that it was broken and there was strained ligaments and tendons. Recovery time should be six to eight weeks but she keeps talking about three months or longer. Ah, she doesn't know me!

They prescribed vicodine for the pain but it has been less than expected and I haven't taken it yet. In fact, the swelling has gone down and I can put on a shoe and gingerly walk on it. The doctor was so impressed she told me she wouldn't put a cast on it and if it didn't hurt too bad with a hard soled shoe I could just wear that. They are going to give me a foot brace just in case but not until next week. If I don't need it now... Oh well.

There are other things going on but I will put them on another post.

What if?

I woke up this morning and like every morning I scanned the headlines on my internet homepage. The headline read that bombs ripped through downtown London this morning. Generally I wouldn't think too much about events that happened half way around the world. This time I sat up and took notice.

Jennifer and I were supposed to be in London today. We had planned a two week trip to London and Paris and this morning we would have been returning to London. Of course my mind began racing. Could it have been possible that we would have been there? I immediately grabbed my file on our cancelled itinerary. I looked through each day's events. I was relieved to see that even if we had been there we were not scheduled to be back to London until the afternoon. This morning (London time) we would have been visiting Stonehenge and traveling back down the countryside in a rented car. At least that was the plan.

But of course my mind was playing the "what if" game. What if we had decided not to go up to Stonehenge? What if we had stayed in London on Wednesday night? What if we had driven straight back to London because we had to return the car? Could we have been in the area of one of the bombs? Honestly it is unlikely but I can't say with 100% certainty.

This reminds me of an event that happened on Sunday. Jennifer and I were traveling to L.A. to visit Jenn's family. We stopped at San Juan Capistrano to get a cup of coffee like we always do. We have stopped there at least a dozen times over the last two years. For whatever reason I asked Jenn to go into a shop across the street, a shop that I had seen and ignored 11 other times. We stayed in there about ten minutes then got back on the road. As we were nearing her parents' house we came upon a horrific accident. One car was upside down, six other cars were strewn across the freeway and there were not yet police or medics on the scene. It had just happened within the last ten minutes! Immediately I realized that if we hadn't stopped in that little store we would be one of these cars!

A few weeks ago a friend was spared from a car accident that could have been fatal. He was a passenger in a car that skidded off the road, weaved in between trees and telephone poles and stopped with minor damage to the people inside. Six inches over and he would have died.

We live in a fallen world. Because of sin there are accidents, disease and death. God has not promised to spare us from all the consequences of living in this world. However, when we stop to look, we realize how many times God intervenes in our lives. God watches over and protects us from harm again and again. I truly believe that God has spared my life on several occasions and countless others I am not aware of. I think our hearts would overflow with praise if we recognized even a small portion of God's daily grace and mercy in our lives.

Some days I sit back and wonder, "what if?"

Three non-negotiable in friendship

Over the years I have had friends both good and bad. In some ways friendships are the most unnecessary of relationships yet we find ourselves drawn to others and including them in every aspect of our lives. People we work with, study with, or meet along the way become a part of our lives. If the situation is right they move from acquaintances to fair-weather friends and on to close friends and finally become intimate friends. It would be good if these categories were static but they are not. Someone might seem to be the best of friends but things aren't what they seem.

I recall learning that there are three essentials to every relationship. This includes friendships and marriage. The first is time spent. Without spending time together a relationship or friendship will never develop. This may seem obvious but how many friendships fall by the wayside and how many marriages dissolve because they don't spend enough time together? What seems intuitively obvious in theory is often not lived out in practice. Of course this means also that there is a limit to the number of truly intimate friends you can have. There are only 24 hours in a day. No one can add to that. Because of that, to truly have close friends you need to limit the amount of people you spend time with if the friendships you have are going to go deeper.

The second essential to every relationship is communication. In order to know another person there needs to be communication. Think about the frustration of meeting someone and there is awkward silence or you stumble through a conversation. As intriguing as the person may look or as interested you may be in getting to know each other you will not develop a deep friendship unless both sides open up. Which brings me to the point that communication must be mutual and progressive. Both sides need to open up and it must come slowly over time. Have you ever had someone emotionally vomit over you? You know what I mean, you just meet someone and they tell you intimate details about their lives. Far from getting close to that person, you are repulsed because there is too much information. But that aside, for a friendship to grow there must be communication.

One caveat, communication should be both verbal and nonverbal. In our cyberspace age there are many different forms of communication. Some are better than others. Email, text message and web postings are fine but they are distant when it comes to communicating deeply. Better is a handwritten letter where the words and letters are formed by your own hand. Even better is a phone conversation where you can hear each others voice tones and inflections in addition to the words that are said. Best is face to face communication. Then you can watch body language and facial expressions. You can not only hear the person but you can see the person as well.

The final essential element in a friendship is trust. Again this seems obvious and intuitive but how often in reality is it not? Without trust a friendship cannot exist and even a basic relationship won't grow. Think about the ultimate relationship of marriage. Once one person does not trust his or her spouse then everything becomes suspect. Where were you? Why were you late? Why didn't you call? What were you doing? Who was that? The list of questions and accusations goes on and on. But this is the case with every friendship not just marriage relationships. As you build a friendship with another person you begin to trust him. You open your life to that person and share details about yourself. In time the details become more personal and intimate. You talk about life, love and happiness. But you also begin to share your fears and insecurities. In time there is a deepening of the relationship to ever increasing depths. Soon you are fully known and you know the other person fully. This is the deepest of all friendships.

And isn't that what we all want? We want to be fully known and still loved. It is one thing to be loved because people don't really know who I am. They don't know my struggles, sins and insecurities so they love me in spite of who I really am. The real me stays hidden and buried. However, it is something entirely different when we are known, warts and all, and someone still loves us. There is a freedom when this happens. We can be ourselves around the other person and know that, come what may, the person is still going to love us.

But what happens when trust is broken? I have had this happen to me several times over my life. One friend of mine would lie about the girls he was dating. Why is beyond me. However, he could not be honest with himself about what was going on in his life. He would make up stories or just blatantly lie to my face. Soon the depth of friendship ceased. Emotional walls began to be built. Trust faded. Not only did the friendship stop growing but it began to decline and die. In time emotions cooled and the conversation flirted on the surface of issues. Finally, because the lies were so pervasive, the friendship ended.

Trust can be broken several ways. The first and most obvious is through straight out lying. Once the lie or lies are found out the friendship instantly changes. This is unavoidable. No matter what you do things are not the same. Repentance and forgiveness can repair the damage but only time will heal the breach of trust. Less obvious forms of broken trust happen when a person presents himself a certain way and that is not who he really is. In a sense, this is still a form of lying but it is more passive and less malicious. For whatever reason a person begins to wear a mask. They pretend to be a certain way. However, once the mask falls off and the real person is exposed the other one is shocked by that reality. He begins to wonder if the person he was friends with was the real person. In fact, did that person really exist at all? Was he nothing more than a character in a human drama?

In both of these instances trust has to be regain but in the second one it will only come if the mask stays off. If the person replaces one mask with another the friendship will stagnate or become dysfunctional. The relationship will continue but it will be an unreality. There is no true friendship because both people are not being true. Sadly, many people live and breath in this reality.

How can we build and maintain true friendships? First, commit to spend time building up those relationships that you have or seek out people who seem interesting to you. Second, take the time to communicate clearly and deeply over time. Finally, be someone who is trustworthy and honest. If you actively put these into practice you will find your life filled with friends who love and are loved deeply.