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Love Better

             Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:18)

                Here’s the verse Jesus quoted (in part) as the second part of “the greatest commandment.” Putting it in its original context is enlightening. We have two possibilities: seeking revenge/bearing a grudge and loving. Put another way, we can either hate or love. Put even more clearly, we can either not love or love. It’s not a difficult concept, until our human nature gets involved. At that point, we start trying to pretend that our hatred is not hatred because, of course, hatred isn’t nice and we want to be seen as nice.

                The whole “nice” bit is a pitfall for us, because to be nice means we must accept, approve, and applaud what the other person says and does. And it’s not reciprocated. Those who demand that love means being nice don’t tend to think they need to love or be nice to anyone who doesn’t accept, approve, or applaud what they dictate that we should. Those who don’t love according to their rules are targets for bullying, revenge, or grudge-bearing. Some people insist that they need not forgive (or give up our grudges) until or unless the person proves that they have changed so that they meet their requirements.

                And before you say, “Yeah, those nasty _____s,” ask whether you do the same thing more quietly. Do you pray for those who irritate you? Do you love them as you love yourself? One of my favorite excuses is that I do love others as I love myself. I just don’t do a good job of loving myself. That lets me set the bar pretty low. Here’s the thing, though. We’re back to my mantra of “Do what you can with what you have where you are now.” Love as well as you can now, and pray that God will teach you to love better.   

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