Comments on: High Octane Love

By: Deborah Nichols

Deborah Nichols — Fri, 02 May 2008 20:26:18 +0000

Isn’t supernatural love and natural love one and the same thing? Jesus rose from the dead and we will be resurreccted in the body. Surely to distinguish between the divine and the instinctive love is to diminish both aspects of God’s nature (God is love, after all).

Surely the difficult person at work benefits in no way from any high octane spiritual ‘love’ – they can see right through it! Surely it’s an insult, not a blessing to be ‘loved’ in this manner.

Surely true love is sincere above all else. As it is from God surely we can’t just turn it on and off like it was a hose, directing it in the direction we please. Surely it’s more like a light shining from within us on anything that comes into contact, spraying love out in all directions, like God loves and like the sun shines on the bad and the good.

Love Deborah

By: Valerie (Kyriosity)

Valerie (Kyriosity) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:29:21 +0000

I know we’re not supposed to cry over spilt milk, but I think I’d cry over the olive oil or the maple syrup!

By: Amanda

Amanda — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:53:55 +0000

My little brother did that with a gallon of maple syrup! We only noticed him when he started crying because he couldn’t stand up, he kept slipping and falling.

By: Claire R

Claire R — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:05:21 +0000

Hah! Thanks for the fun stories. They remind me of the time we had the pastor and his wife over (not you, the Leitharts) and just as the steaks were coming off the grill and the company was arriving, I found baby Lewis on the ground in the kitchen with my 5 liter olive oil, and he had just learned to unscrew. Oh, so sad. We had to warn anyone who wanted to walk through the kitchen that night, to walk slowly and with great aplomb.

By: Megan Lindsay

Megan Lindsay — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 05:17:08 +0000

Nancy, your point is very well taken. I do forget to pray for supernatural love for my children, although I remember dutifully to seek it for the public school children and teachers I work with (for my eldest’s vision services). I work daily to suffer long with my children, but it’s not always in love. Thank you so much for the warning and encouragement.

Recently I have been reflecting on the gospel accounts of Jesus going from town to town teaching the crowds. At one point he wants to go off to a quiet place alone (no doubt exhausted) and the crowd follows him. Instead of yelling that he needs some “alone time”, and can’t they see he’s busy, “he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like a sheep without a shepherd.” I need to pray more for this kind of love for my kids at 4:00 in the afternoon when it’s time to pick up the house, naps are wearing off, my 2-year old decided to experiment with scissors on her hair, and the baby just slugged her sister!

By: Valerie (Kyriosity)

Valerie (Kyriosity) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 02:22:20 +0000

Laughing out loud at your stories!

By: Nancy Ann

Nancy Ann — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 23:56:38 +0000

Certainly, Claire, I agree with you that we ought not be suspicious of evil intent in every little thing, or attribute evil motives to any one without clear grounds for doing so. This means that a mother should not take it personally when her son argues with her or when her daughter disobeys her. She should “think no evil” in that sense. And there are probably many other examples where a mom ought not “think evil” of her children.
However, I think your example of mothering falls into another category all together. A wise mother who is on the lookout will be mighty suspicious in a very loving way of her little brood of busy bees! I remember my son running out of the bathroom with a dart gun announcing that he didn’t need a spanking. My husband went in to see what the guilty party had done, and he found a dart on the bottom of the toilet! (And no, he didn’t get a spanking for that!) Another time when the house seemed “suspiciously” quiet, I dashed to the bedroom to find that my two-year-old had removed his little sister from the moses basket, and she had been (very lovingly, not doubt) placed on my bed. Yikes! You can’t trust those little people for a moment. Then there was the time two of my granddaughters opened the tap on my 5-gallon jug of drinking water and were dancing and splashing around in the laundry room….and then…but I had better restrain myself! I raise my glass to suspicious mothers (and grandmothers)!

By: Claire R

Claire R — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:19:58 +0000

Thanks, Mrs. Wilson! Such a good reminder.

Do you have any helpful thoughts on how we should “think no evil, hope all things, believe all things” of our children? I always took this as an injunction not to be a suspicious (evil thinking) person–effectively saying that love gives the benefit of the doubt, thinks charitably. But when it comes to our kids, it seems we also have a responsibility to be a little suspicious. When the little shifty-eyed person who has already lied twice that morning edges past me guiltily, that’s clearly not the time to think no evil in the sense in which I had been taking it!

Claire Roise

By: Becky

Becky — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:57:53 +0000

Thank you – very true – applies to how we love our husbands too, I think.

By: Amy

Amy — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:45:45 +0000

This is so true and helpful. I also pursue this by reflecting on 1 Cor. 13 when extended family and in-laws are visiting.