Love is courageous

The past months have been hard on most of us, and probably have us looking for a deserted island, where we can block these issues from our minds.  Unfortunately, for most of us, that’s not an option.

Instead, we need to understand that our daily prayers and quiet times of reflection and solitude are as important for our well-being as daily exercise and healthy eating is for our bodies.  Focused time spent in prayer with God can strengthen our resolve and provide us with guideposts to follow when we’re faced with difficult days.  We can pray for strength and courage to endure the hardships.  Most of all, we can pray to not let fear and anger push our love for each other out of our hearts.

Even in the harshest of times, kindness and love are rarely forgotten – even with the advent of many years. I think that memory holds onto kindness because the love that was behind the kind act echoes and remains.

The best example of this was when Jesus turned towards the people because they were needy.  He instructed and healed and eventually fed them; at the very time He had sought solace and solitude having just learned of His cousin John’s death.  John had been beheaded by Herod; and the man who Jesus first preached with, who He had known since childhood and presumably had encountered numerous times over the course of His life had been cruelly taken from him in such a violent, unjust way.  Jesus only wanted to go to a deserted place and find time to mourn, but He put aside His own needs in order to serve others. (Matthew 14:13-21)

Despite His pain, Jesus’ concern was (is) oriented to others.  He saw their needs first and He responded by feeding them.  He loved others even amid his own mourning and bearing the pain of loss.  Where did the resilience come from, that allowed Jesus to face the multitudes when all He really wanted to do was to be alone?

I think it was most likely through His daily prayer life with God. The Bible has numerous passages in which Jesus speaks to His need to be by Himself in prayer with His Father, to nurture and deepen His relationship with God, so that in times of deep distress He would have the wellspring of grit and compassion necessary to rise up to the occasion and deal with the hardship of His life on earth.

And so, it is with us.

We can pray that through all hardship, we will love like God does, and not count the costs.  This is courage.  Love itself is courageous.