Resistance Is Futile

No, this post is not about Star Trek.

Ever had one of those days when God's trying to teach you something and you really don't want to learn it? You know what He's saying is true and important, but you want to cover your ears and sing "LALALALALALA" hoping to drown it out? Today was one of those many days for me.

It started out as any other Sunday morning at my little church. I got my coffee with a ridiculous amount of cream and sugar, and then kicked off my cute but uncomfortable shoes under the small table in our almost-as-small classroom, quickly settling into our normal routine. We chatted for a few minutes about our crazy week, then officially began the class as we shared prayer requests. And as always, I lead the prayer. But this morning, I spent a little more time asking God to teach us something today. ...Dangit.

It just so happened that this morning's lesson was about loving other people as described in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 - one of mine, and I daresay everyone's most difficult challenges. I have absolutely no problem loving the people I like, but God calls us to love everybody. We make so many excuses to not show love to some people, and many of those excuses seem very legitimate from our point of view. As I mention this now, the name of someone you cannot easily love has popped into your head probably along with a long list of reasons. Just as it did in my head this morning. But your reasons and mine mean nothing to God.

You may be thinking that it's not humanly possible for you to love that certain somebody, much less everybody. And you are absolutely correct. But yet, God instructs Christians to love as Christ loved. (Ephesians 5:1-2) So how the heckins are we supposed to do that?! Something pretty awesome that I've learned about God over the years is that if He wants you to do something, He will give you the ability to do it. (Philippians 4:13) In fact, if you belong to Christ, you already have that ability! When you accept Christ as your Savior, you are given His Spirit, and one of the results of that is love. (Galatians 5:22-23)

I think that many times we are quite content in not loving certain people. It's simply easier to avoid them altogether and not put in the effort. But think about what would've happened had Christ not put in the effort for us? We would have remained in a state of hopelessness forever if He had not loved us enough to take the consequences for our sins upon Himself. So who are we to say who we will and will not love? God's love is freely offered to everyone and we need to be allowing His love to flow through us to everyone with whom we come in contact.

Like I said, this is a difficult challenge for me, and I'm sure that you would say the same thing if you were honest with yourself. But this was something very important that I really needed to be reminded of, and it's something I'm going to be working on, and I hope that you will too.

As a warning, don't ask God to teach you something unless you're really willing learn it! Because, my friend, resistance to God's instruction is futile. So much better than Star Trek, right?