It’s very difficult for me. I score a 3 on the enneagram test, which means that I tend to wear a face when I’m with people. I tend to wear whatever face is going to be most well received. This means that I make a very good salesman or performer.
This also means that it’s very hard for me to let down those masks. It’s hard for me to let people see who I really am and what really matters to me; I think in some ways this is a result of my parents. My experiences growing up taught me that if I communicated what did matter to me, then I would learn that it didn’t matter to the person I was communicating with.
So it scares me when people know me before I want them to. My wife does this all the time. It use to terrify me when we were dating – she would say something flippantly, and it would cut to through every façade and mask I had built.
And I took some of that thought process, how terrifying it can be to be known, and started to apply it to God. God had to risk everything that He had, in a sense, to love us. For an omnipotent being, the only possible loss is that of rejection by another being with will. And for an omniscient being, God must have known it would happen. But God still chose to risk and love us anyway.
For me, that means that I must choose to risk and love anyway. It’s easy enough when it comes to my wife (well, most days anyway). But it’s more difficult when it comes to the people who have hurt me in the past – friends, enemies, family. Perhaps especially family.
So that’s my challenge, to you, for today. Look at your life – who is it most risky to love? Who has the most potential to let you down? How will you love them anyway?
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