Day 17 - Love First: Dealing with Arrogance

Love First: Dealing with Arrogance

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
Luke 18:9-13

Arrogance is tough to be around. We have many sayings about people who are arrogant—usually it involves them getting what they have coming to them, right? Sayings like, “Pride goes before a fall” or “How the mighty have fallen!” are just a couple of them. Remember the other faces of arrogance—aloofness, disdain, egotism, pretension, vanity, haughtiness, self-importance, pride—and how we can view them as desirable attributes? That seems to be what the Pharisee had done.

What if you worked with, lived with, or were friends with someone who was arrogant but didn’t seem to realize it? How might you deal with that? We are talking about working Love First in order to effect a change. Where would you even start to introduce the concept of change? A steady diet of being around someone who is arrogant has a way of beating you down.

Love First as a response and a way of life gives this person the benefit of the doubt as a first step. Love First as a way of life tries to understand why this person is the way they are. Many times, arrogance is used to cover up feelings of insecurity. Understanding another person is very often the best thing we can do for them...and for ourselves!

Love First is loving God and loving others. Sometimes that just takes a while. Perhaps the best change we can make in dealing with the challenges brought on by arrogance is to just be warm and friendly and caring...and give the relationship some time.

Perhaps the biggest change we need to make has to do with what’s inside of us. We need to know who we are, know whose we are, and be happy with ourselves.

Your Mission
Cut somebody some slack today. When you become irritated, check your own attitude to be sure it isn’t arrogance talking.

Day 18 - Love First: Dealing With Abandonment

Love First: Dealing With Abandonment

The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans)

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
John 4:9-15

When Jesus asked the woman to give him a drink, little did she realize how her life would change. She thought they were talking about physical thirst, but Jesus was talking about spiritual thirst. Still, you have to follow her line of thinking:

1. If she drank the water Jesus gave her, she wouldn’t have to come back to the well.

2. If she didn’t have to come back to the well, she wouldn’t have to schedule her water drawing so that she avoided the other women.

3. If she didn’t have to schedule differently to avoid others, life would be better.

She was interested because she thought it would make her life easier.

When we have run into the challenges associated with abandonment (remember these other related issues: desertion, invalidation, withdrawal, cast off), it is often our first impulse just to do whatever is the least hassle. The least hassle is most often the least effective. We have to acknowledge our feelings of abandonment or acknowledge another person’s feeling of abandonment. Once those feelings are acknowledged, we must do something...we must act. Most often we choose to overcompensate by joining everything so that we don’t have to deal with the feelings we might have if we aren’t included.

What changes did the Samaritan woman have to make? Jesus let her know that she needed to quit living the life she was currently living—one of sin. He told her that she was to follow what the Messiah said—and that he is the Messiah! Do you wonder whether or not she did as he said? What changes do you think she made? Jesus talked to her about what true worship is. If he told her what she was doing, and then he told her what she needed to be doing, don’t you think she made those changes? It wouldn’t necessarily mean that she wouldn’t continue to face challenges, but he was giving her what she needed to make the changes she needed to meet those challenges.

Your Mission
Name one or two practices you have that you are resistant to change. Ask someone close to you if their life would be better if you did change. Pray about it together.

Day 19 - Love First: Changes

Love First: Changes

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 18:1-4

If we only look at the challenges to living a life that is rooted in Love First, we may not be convinced of how important a vision it is. Because to look at challenges and want to surmount them is to admit that we may need to make some changes, and change scares us. (Fear of the unknown is in that Top 10...)

In her online article on “How to Deal With Change,” life coach Terri Babers reminds us that change is always coming...and whether you look forward to it with anticipation or dread, it can be stressful. One of the biggest things we can do to prepare ourselves for making changes is to adjust our thinking. Attitude plays a huge part in dealing with challenges and with the changes they bring. Some steps to help us deal with change include:

- Simply notice that it is happening. Don’t try to run and hide.

- Face your feelings about the changes needed. Get past “Why me?” and “I don’t want to!” and “This isn’t fair!” Figure out your fears and face them.

- Determine whether or not the change is something you are willing to do. Don’t say you’re willing when you aren’t.

- Adopt an attitude of grateful anticipation. Know that God is in control and you have made the decision to live out his vision.

- Choose your thoughts and attitudes for each change. Negative thoughts block creativity and problem-solving. Positive thoughts build bridges to opportunities and possibilities.

- Learn to relax (more). Relaxation helps us deal with change.

- Set your goals in such a way that you can consciously guide the change.

God’s vision for Christ, and for us, is to love God and love others. Our lives need to be conscious of that all of the time. Choosing to live under that vision of Love First helps us to make any changes we may need to make to deal with the challenges that will come.

Your Mission
Pray the Serenity prayer today. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

Day 20 - Love First: In the Face of Shame

Love First: In the Face of Shame

Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?
John 8:1-5

Shame and its friends guilt and embarrassment are serious challenges to our lives. Shame has other names and faces—contempt, humiliation, remorse, stigma, dishonor, mortification, self-disgust. Feelings of shame are debilitating, keeping us from living full lives. Many times, the shame is secret, and it may not even be rooted in the truth or a real event, but it is real in the perception of the person who feels it. It can feel insurmountable.

In the story above, there are a couple of notable things. First, for all of their talk about the Law, the religious leaders had already disregarded it by only arresting the woman. The law actually required that both the woman and the man caught in adultery be stoned (see Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22). This was trickery by the Pharisees to try to trap Jesus so they could turn him over to the Romans. Second, Jesus didn’t condemn the woman, but neither did he ignore or condone her sin. He told her to leave her life of sin.

Adultery may not be one of the life-altering sins we fall into, but there are others that cause us to harbor shame inside. Adultery by someone we know or love may cause us to feel shame. The challenges presented by that can make a choice to live life Love First really difficult. Can we open ourselves to deal with those challenges? Are we willing to choose to Love First?

Your Mission
Notice someone around you who seems to bear the brunt of criticism. Pray for them by name saying, “What can I do for [name] today?” Plan to respond with Love First.

Day 21 - Love First: In the Face of Rejection

Love First: In the Face of Rejection

Later Jesus was going about his business in Galilee. He didn't want to travel in Judea because the Jews there were looking for a chance to kill him. It was near the time of Tabernacles, a feast observed annually by the Jews. His brothers said, “Why don't you leave here and go up to the Feast so your disciples can get a good look at the works you do? No one who intends to be publicly known does everything behind the scenes. If you're serious about what you are doing, come out in the open and show the world.” His brothers were pushing him like this because they didn't believe in him either.”
John 7:1-7 (The Message)

Fear of rejection is a big deal. It always make the Top 10 lists. In fact, it's most often in the Top 5. Fear of rejection keeps us from being all that we can be. It keeps us from being our true selves. It causes others to feel a lack of confidence in us. While we can recognize it in ourselves, it can be difficult for others to pick up on. We may not realize that the person we work with and who seems so confident is suffering from a fear of rejection—fear of our rejection. Before you claim not to care what other people think, let's see some different things that are wrapped up in this challenge: exclusion, repudiation, dismissal, alienation renunciation, disappointment, deficiency, disapproval, and divorce.

The challenge of rejection hits us where it hurts. It feels like an attack on the very core of ourselves. It's one thing to face rejection from the people who don't know us. It's quite another to face rejection from those who we feel we're supposed to be able to count on to support us! That's a rejection that leaves us reeling. It also leaves most of us determined not to put ourselves in the position for that to ever happen again. We close ourselves off, and it is such a challenge for anyone to get through to us.

We are mostly familiar with the times in Jesus' life and ministry when the teaching and religious leaders of the Jews challenged him and tried to bring him down. But in the account above, it's Jesus' own brothers who didn't believe in him. They ridiculed him—their very own brother who was the Messiah. They didn't believe in him.

Choosing a life that puts Love First challenges those feelings of rejection. It challenges us not to close ourselves off from others. It challenges us to meet those feelings with Love First.

Your Mission
In your prayer time today, ask God to help you to keep from rejecting someone else and to look at them with the eyes of Love First.

Day 22 - Love First: In the Face of Feeling Inferior

Love First: In the Face of Feeling Inferior

...Near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there was a pool, in Hebrew called Bethesda, with five alcoves. Hundreds of sick people—blind, crippled, paralyzed—were in these alcoves. One man had been an invalid there for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him stretched out by the pool and knew how long he had been there, he said, "Do you want to get well?" The sick man said, "Sir, when the water is stirred, I don’t have anybody to put me in the pool. By the time I get there, somebody else is already in."
John 5:2-7 (The Message)

An inferiority complex is a general feeling of not being "up to the mark." Most of us accept without problem that we don’t have the financial acumen of Bill Gates, the brilliant intellect of Stephen Hawking, or the physical capabilities of Usain Bolt. True inferiority has more to do with us feeling like we should be as good as others and feeling like we're not and we don't know why.

I used to wonder why, in the story above, Jesus asked the man if he wanted to get well. That seems to me to be a no-brainer. But Jesus did ask him. The man’s response was not as straightforward as you’d expect. Instead of shouting, "YES!" the man gave an excuse—at least it seems like an excuse to me. The man had been an invalid for thirty-eight years! I don't know whether he’d been laying by the pool that long or not. But he'd been laying there long enough to feel defeated about ever getting in the pool. Yet he still lay there.

The challenge to overcome feelings of inferiority or the challenge to help someone else overcome those feelings is more difficult than it would seem. Other faces of inferiority include feeling inadequate, feeling weak, having deficits that seem insurmountable, feeling insufficient, and having feelings of shortcoming. One thing we can see is that you can't just wish the feelings away—this man had been down for thirty-eight years!

There are some who deal with these feelings by being domineering to prove that they are better than others. There are others who tried to fade into obscurity, continually telling themselves, "I'm not good enough" or "I'm worthless."

Choosing to live Love First in the face of feeling inferior is not without its challenges. Helping others to face those feelings of inferiority is not without its challenges. But Love First demands our action.

Your Mission
Think about those who are oppressed and put down around you. Find a way to be an advocate for someone who needs help today.

Day 23 - Love First: What's Wrong With Me?

Love First: What's Wrong With Me?

When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.
Mark 5:2-5

One of the life challenges many fear and have to face at some point is wondering whether (or realizing that) they or someone they love are damaged. Before you completely blow that off, let’s take a moment to look at the other faces of "damaged." Flawed, impaired, blemished, spoiled, distressed, crushed, fractured, fragmented, shattered, defective, abnormal, inadequate, injured. Does that make it seem a little more personal? Can you relate to feeling like any of those? Do you love someone who feels any of those?

Demon possession is pretty scary to even think about. The Exorcist has scared most of us more than once. Let’s not dwell on the demon possession part. Instead, let's focus on the visible signs that this person—this being—recognized that something was wrong with him. He would roam the tombs and hills night and day, crying out and cutting himself in his grief and devastation. Others were straight up afraid of him. We can pretty much guarantee that he didn't get many visits. But he was desperate for care, for attention...for love. The moment he saw Jesus, he fell on his knees and begged Jesus not to torture him. How damaged must he have been that the first thought that crossed his mind was being tortured?

Not many have been possessed by demons like this man, but many of us have felt inadequate to the point of quitting. We have felt flawed and defective. We know people who seem that way...maybe we have even asked ourselves, "What's wrong with them?" or said, "They're not normal."

But that isn't the end of it. Love First says that we respond—that we do something. In Jesus' case, he cast the demons out of the man. He showed the man compassion and love. He didn't worry about what others would say or do, he responded out of love first. It was challenging to the people who witnessed what happened. Verse 15 says: "When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid."

It will—and does—challenge us.

Your Mission
Meditate on today’s scripture passage. Could you show compassion without judging? What does it take to do so for you?