Midway through the morning a call came in from the specialist’s office: “The high-end specialist (who is booked out clear into April) just so happens to have an appointment available this afternoon. If you can make it in to downtown by 1pm you can have the appointment.”
This was huge! This spur-of-the-moment, last-minute appointment was a huge God-miracle!!
“Oh God, I’m so weak! Oh God, I don’t have the strength! I don’t know how I’m going to have the strength to drive all the way in to downtown, in all the busy downtown traffic!”
What does love look like?
It looks like spur-of-the-moment taking the afternoon off work (even though you’ve got a huge dumpster-fire mess you’re dealing with!) to be an Uber for someone else, all the way in to downtown in nasty heavy traffic, for a really important medical appointment.
This right here is what love looks like!
Love is sacrifice.
It was a huge sacrifice for hubby to take the afternoon off work to Uber in to downtown. Doing so forced him to work much later that evening, in order to catch back up. There was a lot of mess to sweep up.
But love that is real … and love that is true … love does that. Love is willing to make the sacrifice because the other person matters so much!
This kind of sacrifice in order to help someone else, this kind of love can only come from God. This kind of sacrifice is supernatural … it comes from someplace much deeper than ourself.
The prevailing notion is that it is ridiculous to bend-over-backwards to help other people. After all, life should be about “me.” I should focus on doing whatever makes me happy. I shouldn’t have to worry about being bothered by other people’s problems.
If this is the attitude … then love does not exist. Plain and simple.
There is no love … if there is no willingness to sacrifice. Because love is sacrifice.
Paraphrase of 1 John 3:16-18 –
“How do we know what love is? What does love look like? Look at Jesus … Jesus gave absolutely everything because He loved us so much! This right here is what love looks like. If we want to love, then it will require sacrifice … just like Jesus sacrificed.”
“If someone is in need, and if we have the ability to help them … but we have no pity on them, because we don’t want to be bothered by their inconvenience … then there is no love in us. No matter how much we claim to have love … there is no love in us.”
“If we say that we love someone, then there will be actions to back up our words. We will be willing to sacrifice, no matter the inconvenience. Because love is action.”
