The Harvest of Love

Those who sow in tears shall reap with
Shouts of Joy!
Psalm 126:5 ESV

   One night I had a dream. In my dream, I was in a large house, full of family and friends. As I walked around this house, I was trying to find ways to share Jesus with them; loving them, having conversations, talking about what the Lord was doing in my life, sharing my story.
     At some point, I looked in my wallet, and noticed that some investments I had been spending into had multiplied. One in particular, in just a few short months, had tripled. I got excited! I started thinking about all the ways I could save money in other areas, coffee, food, outings...and funnel that money into this one investment. If this investment was so very profitable, it would be well worth my time and money to put as much in now as I could!
     As I woke up from my dream, I could still feel the excitement. My mind was still churning with ways I could save, ways I could invest more. And then as the dream receded and I realized it was only a dream, the realization began to come to me that it was more. That that investment that was multiplying so quickly-- not ready yet for harvest, but very ready for growth-- that investment was the gospel and people.

     Sharing my story. Loving people.

   I realized if I could save my time, energy, resources, and funnel them into people: relationships, serving, discipling, teaching, then that investment would be the most important and valuable investment I could ever make in my life. It would have the most return, and bring the most joy.
But these investments, they come with a price, don't they? If I took my money away from coffee, it would mean that I couldn't have that coffee that day. If I took the money from what would have been our vacation to invest in a return later, then we would miss out on disneyland, or camping, or other fun, right? Now, coffee and vacations are great, and we would love to have them. But some investments cost more.
     Sometimes the investments of love for Jesus and others cost us much more. Tears, grief, sorrow. We may lose friends because we love them enough to tell them truth that they need to hear. We might be rejected by the ones we are trying to help.
     In foster care, which many of you may have experienced, the heartbreak can be very real and painful. You know you must fully open your heart and love these children, because they desperately need love. Love that does not hold back. Love that does not put up a shield. Love that opens wide (2 Cor. 6:11-13). But you know they may reject your love. They may be torn away from you. There are no guarantees, and as often as not, or perhaps more, your heart is broken, and the pain may be carried for a lifetime.

      This love that Jesus calls us to is painful. It's a cross. It's suffering.

     People joke that you shouldn't pray for patience, because then God will send you difficult experiences that require you to grow in patience. I think they pick patience out from the group of the fruit of the Spirit, because there is a feeling that joy is more of an easy, happy feeling. That love is a natural affection for others. That peace is just given. But each of these characteristics of the fruit of the Spirit are born and grow through suffering.
     Just like with patience, our love for people grows when we have difficult people to love—when it costs us something because our love is not being returned.
     There have been really difficult people in my life, where, honestly, my attitudes were really sour. I found that the feeling of natural affection just wasn't there for that person. I found that the only way to show love for that person was to go daily back into my room and cry out to Jesus to give me His love for that person; to give me the grace to show them love when I didn't feel it. I cried out to Him to change my hard, selfish heart.
      Jesus heard my cries, and gradually my heart became softer, more loving, more gentle. Over time, some relationships became beautiful and such a blessing to me. That outcome, however, hasn't always happen. Sometimes I have loved, and my heart has been broken.

      We love most when we love those who may never give love back.

     Jesus said it this way:

“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 
But love your enemies, do good to them,
and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.
Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High,
​because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. 
Luke 6:32-36

     Have you ever experienced the sacrificial love of others into your life? How did that change your life and heart? How did that experience inspire you to give love in the same way you had received it (without expectation of repayment by them)? 

     What experiences of costly or painful love have you had that brought a harvest of joy? What life changes have you seen that were worth the costly investment? 

       How can you love in a way that would cost you something small? 
     
     How could you love in a way that may bring potential tears, heartache, and suffering for Jesus' sake?

     As we invest in love, we will find that the next fruit of the Spirit—Joy—becomes a natural follow-up. When you know that what you are doing will, by God's unbreakable promise, bring life, healing and beauty to you and to others, then even in the midst of the painful relationship or circumstance, even as you carry your cross, you can look forward with joy to the reward and harvest that will be waiting: "Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Heb. 12:2

..................Read the next blog in the Fruit of the Spirit series: "The Strength of Joy"
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     ”If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
     "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
     "Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
      "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is LOVE.
                                                                         1 Corinthians 13