Love Is... Part 5

It's difficult for me to even write this post, this has to be one of the most convicting parts of love to me.

Love is. . . Not dishonoring to others.

I think that pride has a part of dishonoring others. Like I said before, when you are prideful you put others down in order to make yourself look better because you are insecure. It harsh, I know, but the truth hurts (because of our pride).

I feel it makes perfect sense that if you are loving someone that you are not purposely dishonoring them. It sounds like an old fashioned word, so lets put it in "modern terms",

"Love does not 'diss' others, love is not sarcastic towards others, love does not laugh when others fail, love does not point out what is lame about other people, and love does not make people look stupid in front of others on purpose." I think putting it that way makes it sound more applicable to our lives today, for me it does.

To dishonor means to "bring shame or disgrace on a person."

. . . Yeah... I am not even sure what to say after that.

How often is it that we make a joke of others for our own fun? Today we even have television shows devoted to who can "burn" or "diss" the other person the best. If you did not know that I am being completely serious about that, it really exists. It seems like such a normal thing to us but it is not the right thing to do. I struggle so much with sarcasm, I try hard to suppress it, but it comes out all the time though! I hate it when it happens and I hate thinking back on times that I hurt others deeply, or saw others hurting that person and did nothing about it. Did you know that the word sarcasm comes from the late Greek word "Sark" meaning "to tear the flesh"? It is a picture of what the words do to people. "Stick and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" is a complete lie. Words hurt people in far deeper ways than you know. Negative words have been studied by many people. (I suggest the work on water crystals that was done, it is pretty shocking to see)

We all seem to find sarcastic comments hilarious, I include myself in this, but when you are away from it for a while you do not find it nearly as funny as before. I was in an internship and the people I spent most of my time with were told to not be sarcastic anymore. When I did hear a comment like that it shocked me more than it made me laugh. I think that we are trained that it is funny from a young age, but we can also train ourselves to not like it anymore. It is a long process filled with prayer to get to a point where you recognize that it is not right, it is possible though.

So to love people we do not dishonor them. When a person "fails" at something we move on and do not point it out, laugh at it, or anything. If we are being loving, in the 1 Corinthians way, we encourage them instead and discourage those who are making fun. To them you may seem like a kill-joy, but to the person you are defending you are loving.

I do not think I can ever picture Jesus dishonoring another person... When they took sinners before Jesus he did not join in the mockery of them, he defended them. He is the essence of love and we are to reflect him, so we should be doing the same. Would people have hated Jesus if he helped stone the adulterous woman? Probably not, they would have seen nothing wrong with it. Consider the lepers as the "uncool", the deformed, and the disabled in todays society. Rejecting them would be easy and normal, but normal is not the standard that we live by! Healing them, touching them, talking to them, loving them, that is what Jesus did. That is what early Christians did. So why are we not doing the same?

Learning to shut our mouth has to be one of the first parts of learning to love. A wise man holds his tongue. I am trying to add a "Holy Spirit Filter" to my mouth these days. "Would Jesus say that?...No? Okay, time to be quiet," and, "Would Jesus say that? Yes... I suppose I should say it." You can also go by Bambi rules, "if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all." So simple, and so difficult.

I probably do not need to write much more about this. How to apply this to daily life is pretty evident. Try to not point out the flaws of others, the mistakes of others, or make fun of others, even if it is "just a joke" or you are "just kidding". Build others up, even if your image goes down. This is what love is all about.

-Refining the Faith,

C.A.M.

Photo Credit: http://www.nosexandthesuburbs.com/tag/love/