Before I had my daughter I wasn’t sure if I would be a very good mother. I just didn’t have much patience or affection for other people’s kids. But then Elliot come along and I found I had this depth of love and devotion and patience and tolerance for her. But I’m still not very good with other people’s children! In fact, I was explaining a child the other day as being moody, a bad listener, naughty, pushing boundaries, ungrateful and a little bit dumb. Wow, replied my husband! That’s an over the top reaction to a typical child isn’t it?! Especially when my daughter at times can do all the same things and yet get a much more patience, kind and generous response.
Thinking about this made me remember some words of Jesus in one of his famous sermons, the Sermon on the Mount. He says –
“If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that.”
- Matthew 5 v 46 – 47
Ouch! What a failure I am in this! Jesus is saying that God’s love (the kind of love we are meant to copy) is extravagant, without bounds or limits. It is not to be reserved only for those who are – through relationship or personality – easy to love. Indeed, when God chose to love me I was still his enemy. I was still a sinner.
I pray every day that God will help me be a godly mother, loving and kind and patient with my daughter. But today I want to pray that He will help me see all the people I come in contact with as worthy of the best, most extravagant, limitless loving kindness. And that His Holy Spirit will help me to express this loving kindness. For me this will probably be tested when interacting with irrational preschoolers, but for you it might be workmates or in-laws or grouchy neighbours. Whoever it is, I encourage you to try, with me, to love those who are hard to love. Because that is what God did for us.
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