Living in Gracious Space
[Note: I’m taking a rest from my responsibilities at Lifestream over the next three weeks, so this will be the last blog I’ll post until later in October unless something important comes up. And please be patient with my response to your emails as well.]
We finished our last Just Love class with the question that guided our journey: How does love make things right?
That’s not a question we answer by trying harder to be loving. In fact, one of the most important things we explored together is that love is not something we generate from our own best intentions. It is something we receive, abide in, and then find flowing through us in ways we could never have produced on our own.
That may sound simple, but it is not easy for those of us who were taught to live by self-effort. We can even turn love into another performance—another burden to carry, another standard by which to judge ourselves or others. But God’s love does not begin with our lack. It begins with his fullness. When we live from lack, we grasp for significance, defend ourselves, and try to get others to meet needs only God can fill. When we live from fullness, something settles inside us. We are less driven to prove we are right, less desperate to control outcomes, and more available to see the person in front of us.
That became especially clear as we talked about conflict. Love does not ignore what is wrong, nor does it rush to fix everything. It listens. It seeks to understand. It owns the unintended consequences of my own actions. It looks for the path of repair without needing to win the argument. Sometimes love begins with a simple question: What is this like for the other person?
One of the most moving stories in our conversation came from someone who had been caught in a painful family conflict for years. The breakthrough didn’t come when she finally proved her point, but when she could empathize with what her daughter had experienced. That shift did not erase the pain, but it opened a door that trying to be right never opened.
That is where love-informed justice takes us. It doesn’t ask, “How do I win?” It asks, “What would make this whole?”
It doesn’t look for a neighbor worthy of our love, but invites us to become a neighbor wherever love is needed. That’s the beauty of the Good Samaritan story. Jesus didn’t answer the question, “Who is my neighbor?” by helping us figure out who deserves our care. He showed us a man moved by compassion, willing to cross the road and his cultural biases to enter another person’s pain and do what love made obvious in that moment.
Just love is not a new standard to meet; it is the fruit of abiding in Father’s love. When you are loved well, you will love well.
Maybe that is why Jesus could simplify everything so profoundly: Do to others what you would have them do to you. Be loved by God. Love one another. Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with your God. We often make faith more complicated because we are still trying to earn what has already been given. The life and love of God is not a burden we carry; it is a river we can walk into, and a flow we can ride.
As we finished this series, I was grateful for the honest stories, the thoughtful questions, and the way people wrestled with these things not as theory, but in the real situations they face. That’s where love becomes more than an idea. It finds its way into our families, friendships, disagreements, disappointments, and wounds—not because we finally become good at love, but because we find ourselves at rest in his.
That is where his justice can find its expression through us. Not in our striving, not in our need to be right, and not in our attempts to fix everyone else, but in the quiet fullness of Father’s affection. Love makes things around us right by first making us whole enough to see, to listen, to care, and to respond with grace.
And that is a beautiful place to live.
I’m pretty sure that’s what Paul had in mind when he called ambassadors of reconciliation.
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.
And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.
We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.
2 Corinthians 5:18-20