Different kind of love.

Lately I've been getting my fill of people. At least certain people. One-way relationship people. The ones who it seems like you're always investing in, calling up, saying hi to, but who never do it back. Sometimes they give you excuses, sometimes they don't ever seem to notice. But you notice. And you're tired of it. At least I have been lately. Tired of it and ready to throw in the towel, more or less, on certain ones.

But then today I went to the park and had some good Jesus time at a picnic table in the sun. I opened up to John 15, needing to be reminded of God's love for me and who I am in his eyes. [If you haven't read it recently, go do it now!] Verses 14-17 in particular jumped out at me: "You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit -- fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: love each other."

Two lines in particular jumped out at me: you are my friends if you do what I command. This one caused me to pause a second...I don't know about you, but I know I do not always do what God commands, personally. So often I downright stink at all that "abide in me" stuff it talks about in the earlier verses of chapter 15. I get so self-centered and caught up doing my own thing my own way, I don't even take the time to think about letting God have his say in the matter. Yikes. So God, does that mean we're not always friends?? Then came along verse 16: you did not choose me, but I chose you... And I was like...well, maybe I'll just retype my journal entry...

We did not choose to be friends of God, he chose us. Us, with all our baggage and halfhearted ways, who so often put nothing back into the friendship ourselves. Talk about a one-way relationship! I get so fed up with them myself, yet God still loves me when I do that to him. It doesn't make it right, it doesn't make it good; it makes him the best friend ever, it makes him God. And I am called to be like him...oh crap... [really, I wrote that] That means I can't just give up on those people who drive me nuts sometimes, doesn't it?

Maybe what you need is a different kind of live, one that you have never seen
Maybe all you are is a part of a star on a long journey
Maybe what you need is a better kind of love, one that you could only dream
Maybe it'll take all the sorrow away and let you feel free
[Brendan James, "Different Kind of Love"]