Love is not a reward for change, it is the change

​For much of my life, I have felt like I've been working for and toward the gift of God's love. Most days I feel like I'm moving beyond that way of thinking and feeling, but I still have my days.

This past weekend, I got to hang out with a lot of 'church people'. The people I have traditionally believed God loved. In the midst of talking to these people, and dare I say teaching and preaching to these people, I can begin to wonder, what on earth am I doing here?

What on earth does a guy looking for God's love have to offer people who have already found it?

That's what I can find myself thinking.

Until I remember one of my favorite bible characters, Paul. The man who had been killing the 'church people' until God showed up and convinced Paul he was as loved as the people he was killing. And then Paul became a teacher and preacher of love.

God didn't start loving Paul after he became who he became, God loved Paul INTO BECOMING who he ultimately became.

Over and over, that's the story of almost every character in the bible. God loving them into change, not loving them in the aftermath of it.

Our problem isn't that God doesn't love us in our struggles, it's that we forget that he does. We stop believing that he does. And when we stop believing God loves us, we stop loving ourselves.

You know, a lot of times people forget that God loves them in their struggles because we humans stop loving people in their struggles. We humans can start looking like people who want the people around us to change in to people we can start loving.

We often make our love someone else's reward and not the power with which we enter into someone else's struggle to bring hope and change.

We often lead with judgment and hope for healing, when it's putting aside our judgment that is often the ultimate fuel for healing.

If you want to know where God is most present today, look right smack dab in the middle of your biggest struggles. God is waiting for you there, even as you do everything you can to stay away from that place.

Maybe the more we tell ourselves God's love is there, the more likely we'll go to those hard places. Go there and find the courage to make the changes that need to be made there.

And maybe, just maybe, if we start finding each other there, finding each other in our hardest places, we'll all find the courage to make those changes.

We'll all start feeling love as a gift we get in the midst of our deepest struggles, not a reward we get once we've overcome them.

Love is not a reward for doing life well, it's how we help each other feel most well while doing life.