What is Love?

Hello there, dear contender in the human race. May the blessings of God be upon you as you continue to press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. What a walk this is, huh? Lately, as I have struggled to suppress the “self-full-ness” (I just made up that word) wedged within me, so that I can love with the pure love of Christ, I have found myself having more empathy with others engaged in the same challenge. I have seen how self-oriented my “love” too often is, and it absolutely disgusts me. So I thought I’d discuss this subject in my column in this issue of The Contender, and I hope that you can relate to what I share and also benefit from it.

“What is love?” That’s a question that has no doubt been asked countless times, and no doubt been answered in countless ways, such as: “A many-splendored thing”; “Five feet of heaven in a ponytail”; “Giving”; “Rosie” (or whatever woman’s name may be tattooed on your arm). But, of course, since God is love, we should allow Him to define this term for us, and He certainly does so in His Word.

The Greek word agape, unknown to writers outside the New Testament, is a familiar one to most Bible readers, and I like E.W. Bullinger’s lexical definition of it:

“Agape denotes the love that springs from admiration and veneration, and which chooses its object with decision of will and devotes a self-denying and compassionate devotion to it.”

Gosh, I want to love that way. Keys to doing so? Keep putting on the mind of Christ, so that I see each person as he does. Keep reaching out to others. Keep adjusting my heart and actions when I see that others are not getting the love I think I’m giving. No self pity! No whining!

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 has been quoted, carved, decoupaged, needlepointed and calligraphied. What I really want to do is live it. Here it is from The Message:

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Would to God that the above will one day be a description of me, but boy, the sin nature within me is subtle. My love for another and my great desire to do for her (let’s use a female pronoun, since that’s hip these days) can cross the line into becoming about me rather than about her. It can become about my pride in doing, and I can usually tell when this is by how I feel when she doesn’t show as much appreciation as I think she should. This is about control, not selfless giving, and it stifles true love.

Recently I was talking with my daughter, Christine, who usually dispenses at least several pearls of wisdom in each of our conversations. She had just completed a four week Outward Bound course as the lead counselor for seven “troubled yutes” (boys ages 13 to 17), and her observations were poignant. She spoke about her tendency to be a control freak (that couldn’t be genetic) and how she was learning to overcome this, especially in the context of leading people who have free will.

Naturally, in a phone conversation taking place soon after the NBA playoffs, we as serious hardwood fans talked a little about the final series between the Lakers and the Pacers. In the context of her recent experience in the wilderness with the boys, she mentioned Lakers coach Phil Jackson’s hybrid religious philosophy, a kind of “Zen Christianity.” A main point in Zen thinking is detachment from the outcome in a situation. Christine said that she had to come to grips with the fact that nothing she did for those boys would guarantee a change in their lives. Therefore, if she were to be in balance, it could not be about winning or losing, as far as her impact upon them, but rather about becoming content with just being with them in their struggle.

Think about how all this relates to the Lord Jesus. He lived his life and went to the Cross knowing that not all people would believe in him and take advantage of the monumental sacrifice he was making for them. In fact, some would curse him, spit on him and do everything they could to stop other people from knowing him and loving him. Yet, he still made the long trek to Golgotha, and I don’t think he was muttering angrily under his breath all the way. But I have muttered my way through too many “selfless” acts of “love” that took far less sacrifice than the Cross. How sickening is that?!

God is love. What a truth! One of the greatest ways that God showed His love was by giving mankind genuine freedom of will, and really allowing us to make our own choices in life. True love never coerces or manipulates in any way. Rather, God sets before each of us choices, telling us the resulting benefits and consequences. He does not then “badger” us about the choices we make. His message is, “When you turn to me, I am right there for you, and when you turn away from me, I am still there waiting for you to turn back.”

God is the model lover, and we can see His heart personified in Jesus Christ. In My Utmost For His Highest (July 19), Oswald Chambers writes:

“Our Lord never insists on having authority; He never says, “Thou shalt.” He leaves us perfectly free–so free that we can spit in his face, as men did; so free that we can put him to death, as men did; and He will never say a word. But when His life has been created in me by His redemption, I instantly recognize His right to absolute authority over me…If our Lord insisted upon obedience, He would become a taskmaster, and He would cease to have any authority. He never insists upon obedience, but when we do see Him we obey Him instantly, He is easily Lord, and we live in adoration of Him from morning till night. The revelation of my growth in grace is the way in which I look upon obedience.”

How hard it seems to be for me to follow suit, even with someone who I love deeply. Why? Because I often think that I know what is best, and I want to control the outcome. Even if I am right, that is still not the way God loves me, and the other would be well served if I love her like God loves me. I am currently reading a book titled The Art of Intimacy, by T.P. and P.T. Malone, and I think that some excerpts from an essay on “Love” that one of the authors had written earlier and included in the book are most pertinent in the context of this column:

“The experience of loving is unilateral. It asks no response, nor does it demand the other to be deserving…The loving rewards, not the being loved…The feeling of love arises out of your person, unreasonably and wonderfully thrusting itself on, and contagiously evoking response in, the other. When felt unreservedly without hesitance, shame or fear, the loved has no choice but to love. The slightest hesitance or most meager reservation in loving can undo. If the love feeling in you does not wake a love response, do not chastise the other, but look into your own heart to find wherein your loving lacks fullness or is crippled by your hesitance…

“I love you”…means that I surround you with the feeling that allows you—perhaps even requires you—to be everything you really are as a human being at that moment. When my love is fullest, you are most fully you…And so I experience you in all your beauty and in all your ugliness…Because being loved allows the other to be what he or she really is, it is much easier to know when you are loved than when you are loving. The affirmation of your love is in the other person’s being; the confirmation of being loved lies in your experience of being yourself…Since it is easier to know when you are loved than when you are being loving, the most serious personal distortions of human experience lie in the loving, not the loved, experience. Most psychiatric problems arise out of confusion of loving; mistakes about being loved are rare, if they occur at all…

But to love is to be alone, at least initially and momentarily, since it is unilateral and not dependent on response from the loved one. And since the fear of being separated makes us concerned with the response of the other, and so keeps us from loving, the very fear of aloneness and separation oddly enough results in our awful aloneness and deadly separation.”

A husband has no absolute guarantee that even if he loves his wife like Christ loved the Church, she will respond with a godly love for him. A parent has no absolute guarantee that his godly parenting will result in his children becoming dynamic Christians. Yet God’s Word states that this kind of godly love is the only way to go in any human relationship, and is what gives the other the best opportunity to respond as God would have him respond. Once again, Jesus Christ is the epitome of this kind of love.

In 2 Corinthians 5:18-20, the words “reconcile” or “reconciliation” appear five times. The basic meaning of the noun is “a change on the part of one party only, induced by some action on the part of another.” God so loved that He gave His only Son. Jesus so loved that he gave his only life. Now it is my turn, your turn, and we can so love that we give up ourselves for the sake of another, to show her as much as possible of the heart of God, unfiltered by our humanity.

Ephesians 4:25-32 gives us a clear picture of how it will look, behaviorally, if I love someone like Jesus would. Then come verses 1 and 2 of Chapter 5 – a commandment of God that must contain both a provision and a promise. That is, we can do it!

Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

It looks to me as though a key to reaching this lofty goal is to know that I am “dearly loved” by the Creator, who is also my dad, and by the Lord Jesus, who is my big brother. The more I understand their passionate, unwavering, unconditional love for me, the more free I am to fearlessly love others, knowing that my “self” is in good hands and that I don’t have to take care of it at the expense of another. Such a deal.

Well, I gotta go and practice all this, so until I see you in the October Contender, have fun in the Son. And stay on the edge of your comfort zone, stretching your faith day by day.

I love seeing men submissive

I know this is probably not a “normal” female fetish, but I love seeing men play a submissive role in the bedroom. It’s not that I want a “feminine” guy, it’s really a turn on to see the role reversal of a masculine guy dominated by a woman and letting her take control. A guy on all fours or with his legs spread, or in some other kind of “vulnerable” position is just the hottest thing in the world to me. Especially love when a guy lets me play with his “forbidden” hole. Wish more guys were open to the idea.

Tragic British girl, eight, who died after being shot in head on a family holiday to Jamaica
Imani Green, of London, shot on Friday night in Duncans, Trelawny Parish
Girl abroad for winter holiday with mother Donna, 47, and sister Jamila, 19
Struck in head by bullet from 9mm pistol and hit in shoulder by second bullet
By MARK DUELL and LESLIE LARSON
PUBLISHED: 00:04 EST, 13 January 2013 | UPDATED: 12:02 EST, 13 January 2013
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Killed: Imani Green, eight, was on a family holiday in Jamaica and shot dead after an assailant opened fire at a grocery store
A British child on a family holiday in Jamaica who was shot dead after an assailant opened fire at a grocery store was in the country to help her cope with a genetic illness, it was revealed today.
Imani Green, eight, of Balham, south-west London, was at her cousin’s small shop on the island’s north coast, in the town of Duncans in Trelawny Parish, when violence broke out during an argument.
The girl – abroad for a winter holiday with her mother Donna, 47, and sister Jamila, 19 – was struck in the head by a bullet from the shooter’s 9mm pistol and then hit in the shoulder by a second bullet.
Imani, who suffered from the genetic blood disorder of sickle cell anaemia, was with three relatives in the family’s shop when a gunman wearing a hoodie entered and began shooting.
‘We heard gunshots,’ Imani’s sister told BBC News of Friday evening’s incident. ‘We ran outside and shouted “Imani, Imani, Imani”. I picked her up off the ground and realised she was still breathing.’
She managed to flag down a car, which drove them to hospital. ‘The rest is history,’ she added.

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The three members of her family who were also shot during the attack are in a stable condition.
Imani’s brother Dean Palmer, 27, said he was devastated by the death of his sister, who went to Jamaica twice a year to help her cope with the disease. It’s advised that sufferers avoid cold temperatures.
He said the family was in two minds about whether to take her this time, but within a few days of arriving she was ‘back to her normal self’.
Shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan, MP for Tooting, said: ‘(I am) devastated to hear the news of eight-year-old school girl Imani Green, a pupil at a Tooting primary school. This is terrible news.’
Witnesses said the young girl was deliberately targeted in the attack.
But Kingston Police Deputy Superintendent Steve Brown told Sky News: ‘We do not know the motive. What we can confirm is that Imani was not the target of this shooting.’
Other family members were nearby and rushed to scene when they heard the gunfire. They found the little girl, still breathing, in a pool of blood. She was taken to the hospital but died before they arrived.

Tragic death: Imani Green (pictured left by herself and right with her mother Donna, both in 2009) was at her cousin’s small shop on the island’s north coast, when violence broke out during an argument

‘I picked her up and flagged down a taxi. We took her to hospital to try to save her life but it was too late,’ Jamila told the Sun.
Her grandmother, Sandra Fisher, 54, said they ‘found her in a pool of blood. It was horrible.’
The other family members in the shop, two women and one man, were also wounded. They were hospitalised and in stable condition. Her mother was described as inconsolable after the tragedy.
Imani’s father, Richard – who had remained in Britain over the holiday – was similarly overcome with grief and collapsed when he was informed via telephone that his young daughter had been killed.

Family: The girl was visiting relatives in the small town of Duncans, a rural area on the north coast of the Caribbean island
‘He’s in a bad way. Imani was his life,’ Ms Fisher said.
There was no report on if the gunman had been apprehended or indication on a motive for the crime.
Neighbours in Balham today spoke of their sorrow following the girl’s death. One friend of the family, who asked not to be named, said: ‘This is a close-knit community, so this is going to hurt us.’
Another added: ‘Nobody wants to speak, she was just a little girl. This is all so sad. We’re distraught.’
Neighbours said members of the girl’s family left their home for a flight to Jamaica early this morning to be with Imani’s mother.

Education: Imani attended Fircroft Primary School in Tooting, south London, near her home in Balham

Home: The three-storey, semi-detached property in Balham, south-west London, where Imani Green, eight, was said to have lived
A man who answered the door at the three-storey property declined to speak to the press today.
SICKLE CELL ANAEMIA IN PROFILE
Sickle cell anaemia is an inherited genetic blood condition.
People with the condition have sickle haemoglobin (HbS), rather than regular haemoglobin (HbA) – the protein in red blood cells which carries oxygen.
Regular red blood cells can easily bend and travel around blood vessels without any problems – but sickle haemoglobin sticks together when giving oxygen to tissues.
This makes red blood cells sickle-shaped and less able to move. They can easily block small blood vessels and this prevents oxygen from getting through and can damage organs.
Sufferers should avoid wearing tight clothing, dehydration and cold temperatures – as well as maintaining a good diet.
Anne Wilson, headteacher at Fircroft Primary School, in Tooting, south London, where Imani attended, said she was ‘a happy, playful child who was popular with staff and pupils alike’.
Ms Wilson added: ‘She dealt with her illness very bravely and coped well with the special arrangements we had to have in place to support her.
‘She had been given special permission to travel to Jamaica so that she could benefit from the warmer climate and we had been in contact with the local primary school she was attending whilst there to make sure she was receiving an appropriate education.’
A British Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesman said: ‘We can confirm the death of a British national in Jamaica on January 11.
‘We are providing consular assistance and liaising with local authorities in Jamaica. We cannot comment further on cases involving minors.’
Jamica’s National Security Minister Peter Bunting condemned the killing.
He said: ‘The senseless killing of a young, innocent child must outrage all well-thinking Jamaicans, and cause us to join our security forces in an intensified effort to rid our communities of criminals.’
Read more:
Gunman murders trip girl, 8

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261599/Imani-Green-Tragedy-British-girl-8-holiday-Jamaica-dies-shooting-familys-grocery-store.html#ixzz2Htg0CUj6
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How could anyone kill this baby?
Father still in shock, residents blame police for infant’s gruesome death
BY RENAE DIXON Sunday Observer staff reporter [email protected]
Sunday, January 13, 2013

THE father of an 11-month-old boy and common-law husband of the child’s mother, who is said to be mentally ill and who reportedly confessed to killing the child early last Thursday morning, is still in a state of shock.
Lynval Mattison still cannot understand why Michelle Stewart, 40, also called Ver, allegedly killed their son — Lyndon ‘Jerry’ Mattison — just days ahead of his first birthday, which would have been celebrated this Tuesday.
Baby Lyndon ‘Jerry’ Mattison a few months before he was killed last Thursday.

Michelle Stewart and Lynval Mattison took this photo when she was eight months pregnant

2/2
“Mi can’t eat nothing. Is like every time mi try to eat, a big lump in mi throat,” Mattison, who works with Jamaica Producers Group, told the Jamaica Observer on Friday.
“Mi love the baby bad, bad,” he added in obvious distress.
On Thursday morning, Mattison got up and made cornmeal porridge for baby Lyndon and prepared breakfast for his child’s mother before leaving for work.
Nothing prepared him for the horrific news he got later that morning via phone: their infant son had been chopped to death at their Fort George Road home, and the woman he lived with had confessed to the infanticide after turning herself in to the Annotto Bay police.
A very emotional Mattison said he has been in a relationship with Stewart for nine years and that he loved her and supported her all the way. “Mi stick to her, make sure she have everything, make sure she take her medication,” he said, referring to her prescription pills for an undisclosed mental condition.
Mattison said he made sure that Stewart always took her medication, so he just cannot figure out what happened to prompt such a violent act that fateful Thursday morning. He said that when he left home for work, there were no signs that anything was wrong with her.
According to the woman’s common-law husband, Stewart had never hurt the child in any way before.
Mattison said that although Stewart has had a mental condition for years, it was during her pregnancy that he started to realise how serious it was. However, despite her erratic behaviour, he said he continued to support and take care of her.
Mattison said he grew very close to his son and became the designated caregiver shortly after his birth, because the child’s mother had to remain in hospital for some time after delivery.
He described coming home from work in the evenings to be met on the veranda by his gurgling baby boy.
“As him hear the gate open, him push di door open and deh pon ‘da, da, da’,” a teary-eyed Mattison recalled.
“Mi can’t stay here. Mi can’t deal wid it,” he said as he explained that the memories associated with the home will make it hard for him to continue to live there after the tragedy.
Although Mattison said he knows Stewart would not have hurt, or killed the baby, or any other child if she was in her right state of mind, he couldn’t imagine being able to continue a relationship with her.
“Mi scared fi live with her again,” he said, frankly, and explained that he had slept in the same bed with Stewart nightly but would not feel comfortable sleeping with her again.
“Mi love her, but mi get scared,” Mattison said.
The grieving father said that when he visited her at the police station on Thursday and asked her what happened, she told him the baby was dead and that she had killed him.
He added that when he asked her why, she just kept shaking her head without offering an answer.
Stewart reportedly partially severed her baby’s head from its body and inflicted several chop wounds on the child about 6:30 am last Thursday. Afterwards, she walked into the Annotto Bay Police Station to confess.
Stewart, who is a vendor, has two other children from another relationship. They did not live with her and Mattison.
Her stepmother Levanie Carter, who raised her, said Stewart started having mental problems years ago after she gave birth to a set of twins who died soon after.
Carter believes that Stewart must have missed her date to go and get her medication, as it is only when she is not on her medication that she behaves “outrageous”.
While the family tries to cope with the tragic incident, residents of the community have expressed anger at the police for not intervening in a potentially volatile situation.
They claim that the woman had visited the Annotto Bay Police Station on Wednesday asking that they take the child from her.
The police, they said, took the woman to hospital but no one who spoke with the Sunday Observer seemed clear on why she was later allowed to go home with the child.
“Is not the woman dem fi investigate, is the police,” one resident told the Sunday Observer.
“She wouldn’t kill her baby if she did have sense; she wouldn’t even kill somebody else baby if she did have sense,” the man said, explaining that the police should have taken the baby from Stewart when she went to them on Wednesday.
“She go down a station fi go tell dem fi tek the baby from her, and dem still mek she leave wid him,” the very upset resident stated.
When the Sunday Observer sought to confirm that Stewart had indeed gone to the police on Wednesday, a cop at the Annotto Bay station directed the newspaper to the Port Maria Police Station. But a call to Port Maria resulted in a cop there redirecting the Sunday Observer to the Annotto Bay Police Station.
Mattison said that after the death of his son, he, too, had heard that Stewart had gone to the police on Wednesday. However, the police had not said anything to him about this alleged visit.
He said that the police knew Stewart because he had taken her picture to them after she went missing from home for an extended period last year. He also said that the cops should have informed him if she had gone to them prior to the death of their son.

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/How-could-anyone-kill-this-baby-#ixzz2HrXhwrYb

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