Resolution #1

My girls love to feed the ducks, and this is my favorite time of year to do it. All of the cypress tree leaves are falling and leave a soft red carpet over the grass. The pond is still and clear, and the ducks come swimming up eagerly quacking for their snack. The girls break off pieces of bread and toss them into the water where the ducks gobble them up and squabble over them selfishly.

I always try to throw a few pieces to any duck that is on the edge of the group and not getting to the pieces as quickly as the others. I spotted one such duck and threw a few pieces just to the left of it so that it could get to them before the others. It completely ignored the bread and kept trying to fight the other ducks for the pieces in the middle. I threw some more perfectly within reach and he ignored them again.

After a few minutes the duck turned to the side and I realized that he was missing his right eye. I threw a few pieces just to his other side and he gobbled them right up. It wasn’t that he didn’t want the bread that I had thrown, he simply couldn’t see that it was there.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16 NIV

This verse is so well known that we often rush through it. Here is the humbling truth- God loved us, but we couldn’t recognize His love. We needed something tangible instead of invisible. In order to see God, we first needed to know that we were seen by God. So God sent His Son to earth, in our human world. He knew pain, loss, loneliness, and rejection. He felt all of the extremes that we experience, even to the point of being killed by his own people while faultless. And yet, he loved with a love that this world is still reluctant to believe. He still loves us with that same unbelievable love, even on the days when we can’t see it.

Sometimes in sharing my faith with others, they shut down, unable to relate or recognize the love that I have come to rely on with complete trust. While I toss out the breadcrumbs, hoping to draw them to the source of satisfaction, they don’t gobble them up as I expect. Just like the duck at the pond, life has dealt them a blow that has left them with a wound, blinding them from the truth. What can we do?

We must love like Jesus loved. We must love creatively, finding ways to show our love before we speak it. We must love unconditionally, loving each person as they are and where they are. And finally, we must love empowered by Christ. We must spend more time praying for this person in private, asking God to give us wisdom and discernment to love them in a way that they can receive than we ever spend preaching at them.

Jesus, my first new year’s resolution is to love like you did: in person, up close and intimate. Give me your discernment to know how to love those around me so that they will learn to trust you through my example. When I grow tired of trying, let your unconditional love for me fuel confidence to keep loving others creatively.

How can I show others that I love them before I them them that God does, too?

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