"If we stop loving on our terms, God will heal our wounds" - Common Hymnal
These are the words to a song, whose lyrics have broken my heart and brought tears to my eyes. Why? Because in listening I have found that I have not learnt to love well, and my misguided attempts at love have done more damage than they have good.
I have loved incompletely because I have loved on my own terms. I have decided who is loved and how much they are loved, but by the same token decided who is not to be loved and the half-hearted treatment that would come from this lack of love.
But this is inconsistent with the gospel.
The royal law, found in James 2:8, commands us to "Love your neighbor as yourself,". This law is communal, putting forward a love that goes full circle to extend to both neighbor and self, ensuring that everyone has a comfortable seat at this table of love and belonging.
We are all deserving of it.
This song, whose lyrics I have quoted, has the same theme of a community of love, and is adapted from Isaiah 58, where God lambastes a people that think they are serving Him well, yet are very far from Him. God responds to these people by telling them that they have chosen to do things on their own terms, and not the terms He has chosen. They have attempted to manipulate God with their hunger, yet God has prescribed that justice and righteousness would catch His attention, and not their failed attempt at piety.
God had chosen, and still chooses that true spirituality would be"to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke"Isaiah 58: 6 NIV.
A spirituality that is removed from serving the people that it walks and lives with is no spirituality at all. It is merely a poor performance whose intended audience is disinterested in watching. Our faith and spirituality was created to truly meet the needs of others, fight for justice, stand with the marginalized, and pour itself out for the needy. For it impossible to truly love a God we have not seen, if we have failed to love our neighbor who we have seen 1 John 4:20 NIV.
Our neighbor is in need, and until we stop trying to meet those needs on our terms, which often is our silence and complicity, we waste our efforts and will continue to miss the mark.
God is really disinterested in our falsehood, and asks us as He asked them "will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the LORD?" Isaiah 58: 6 NIV.
But there is a better way, and it is found in Micah 6:8 NIV that says "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Justice, mercy and humility will lead us to walk with God, rather than our attempts to try draw His attention from the opposite end of the vineyard.
And it begins by listening. It requires that we listen to both God and our neighbor, because we will not know how to meet our neighbor's need until we have listened to them. But we will not listen to our neighbor if we have not seen the heart of God and look past ourselves to see our misguided attempts at pleasing Him.
"Home, home, home, home where the fasting that you seek
Is breaking chains, breaking free
Home, home, home, home where the songs that we sing
Move the ground underneath
Home, home, home, home where the worship that you seek
Feeds the hungry, the ones in need
Home, home, home, home where love that we seek
Is growing gardens, fixing streets
Is growing bridges, planting trees
Is digging wells for all to drink
Is finding light for us to see
Is building trust between you and me
Is building strength and family" - Common Hymnal
Listen to your neighbor, she will help you understand the heart of God.
_ Takunda
Song: Common Hymnal - God Will Heal Our Wounds <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52BojNxtS1I>
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