The miraculous quality of love: a story from my life

Love in many respects is so every-day it is easy to forget its miraculous quality.

Many years ago I was kneeling at the Alter ready to receive communion, and noticed someone kneeling next to me who was a source of great irritation for me. This irritation didn’t relate to a particular incident but ran much deeper, as it concerned his whole personality! We worshipped in a very down-to-earth working class church and he was ‘posh’ and upper-class in his manners and demeanour. At our weekly bible study he seemed to put on lots of airs and graces, and was very opinionated as well; moreover, his opinions grated me and, for my ears, often contained half-truths at best. However, I knew I shouldn’t take communion with these feelings toward him so, before the vicar came to us with the bread and wine, I prayed quickly: ‘God, you have put him next to me for a reason. You know how much he irritates me and how deep this runs, so all I can do is hand the whole thing over to you to do something about it, because I can’t, that’s for sure, as I find him so unbelievably annoying!.... Amen’.

I didn’t feel any change in me at the time but I took communion anyway repenting of my sins, and so on. However, when I saw him next at our bible study everything had utterly and irreversibly changed! My view of him had been completely transformed, and this definitely wasn’t a result of me trying to think of him differently, it just happened! For a start, his apparent airs and graces suddenly marked him out as genuine. I now saw that instead of him finding a posh church to attend, he had courageously committed to a church that was outside his comfort zone, and he was to be admired for this trait! Then, his strong opinions, which once grated, now revealed a man who was passionate about his faith, and that he thought about what he believed a lot! Also, I found that instead of dismissing these opinions, I now listened to them – not because I agreed with them all, but because I discovered afresh that in my disagreement I was likely to find truths which are much harder to find listening always to like-minded people. Plus, the icing on the cake was that I saw he had a really good sense of humour! It was dry and subtle certainly, but funny nevertheless, and so now, on top of it all, he made me laugh! Finally, I then noticed that others in the congregation seemed to really like him too, and felt comfortable around him, despite him being very different from most of us!! I had to keep my jaw from dropping all night as I looked on, disbelieving, at the utter transformation of my original view of things.

Now, what are the wider lessons here? First, that to love others well we need to depend on God’s strength and not our own – after all, God is love and so he is the source of all things good (1 John 4:8). Second, that love is inevitably outward-looking - it embraces difference and what is ‘foreign’ or other and as God is found in, what is for us, the most unexpected places – even in the Samaritan who is reviled and hated (Luke 10:25-37). Third, that love is miraculous, and in the most profound and wonderful way; because, unlike other less everyday miracles, love doesn’t so much change the facts of the world but rather our view of them and as we experience the world so utterly differently, as if we have been born again (John 3:3). 

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