ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

Last night I listened to two songs over and over: All You Need Is Love and Tears of the Saints (thanks, Mark!), so I really have love on my mind today! Then this morning I read this in a Key Life magazine--

LOVE TRUMPS EVERYTHING ELSE--ALWAYS.

Love sees things the mind can miss. It took me a long time to discover that love is a lot stronger than I thought it was. I was so busy practicing my religion, getting my theology right, teaching the truth, and working for God that I almost missed love.

I once saw love in a prostitute's weeping for another prostitute who had been abused by a client.

I watched love as a gay man nursed his partner, who was dying of AIDS.

A friend of mine told me about love when he went to bars because that's where his friends were, and he felt more comfortable there than in church.

You can find love in a cult where doctrines are are wrong, and at a party where drunks are cursing.

You can find love in a racist as he watches his child being born.

You can find love in a Muslim mosque where a father weeps for his son, who just blew himself up thinking he was doing it for God.

I've seen love in a liberal church that was feeding the poor and in a fundamentalist church that forgave and restored a sinful preacher.

Sometimes love is masked by harshness, lust, and booze; but if you know where to look, you can find it.

Love hangs out in brothels, churches, bars, and missions.

Love is in the homes of the rich and of the poor, in the smoke-filled back rooms of the powerful as well as the smoke-filled back rooms of the unpowerful.

Love is sometimes emotional and sometimes unemotional.

Love is sometimes harsh and sometimes gentle.

Love can be a mighty river or a gentle stream; but mostly, love hangs out in the "wrong" places...or else it isn't love.

What matters isn't WHERE you go to find love; it's what you're looking for. It's not really the wrong PLACE that causes you to miss love but the wrong DEFINITION.

It's not what's in your HEAD but what's in your HEART.

If you can't define it with the EXPERIENCE OF YOUR HEART, you can miss love.

I watch very little TV, but the other night I was halfway watching "The New Adventures of Old Christine" (probably while blogging!), and the ex-husband and his girlfriend told Christine that they had taken her son to church. Her reaction was, "I don't want him to go to church. Church people are mean and judgmental."

Is that how the world sees Christians? How sad, especially since Jesus said that the world would know we are his disciples by our LOVE!!

Well, we can't do anything about Hollywood, but we can show Johnson County our love. I'm praying that we'll do that magnificently during our 40 Days of Community, and then just keep it going.

Of course, the dilemma was expressed well by Charlie Brown when he said, "I love humanity. It's people I can't stand."

I guess our first challenge will be Teresa Mans. She just got kicked out of Teen Challenge and wants to come home. She called me from a bus station today and needed bus fare. I honestly didn't have it, so she was going to call Dan Leeds next. He worked long and hard to get her in that rehab. Pray for God's grace to be on him and that God will give him wisdom on how we should respond to her.