Service, Prayer, and the Pursuit of God’s Love
Read time: 3 minutesI am getting to know a young woman in Bangkok who I am tutoring for English. Some of her choices are risky and she doesn’t know Jesus. She is young, just 16 years old. I notice that part of me might want to jump in with my ideas of what is best, of how she should live her life. But I’ve been thinking more about love, wanting to love her well.
Paul wrote about many messy things to the Corinthians: church unity, sexual immorality, leadership, and money. Then he stopped and wrote the “love chapter” smack dab in the middle of all the directions. After Paul spent time defining love, talking about it, comparing it to other good stuff, and then wondering at the mystery of everything, he left us with 1 Corinthians 14:1: “Pursue love.” This whole section gives me a sense that love requires growth and work. We have to run after it. Love is a supernatural power that requires skill-building, practice, and discipline.
To love others in God’s way requires practice. We must want to love and then be willing to work for it, to learn how. I recommend service as your training field. When we intentionally live life as servants, we have many opportunities to practice love. We think about how to love and serve, which is helpful. Automatic, unconscious behavior is generally a deterrent to loving behavior because our natural self is mostly focused on our own needs: safety, significance, and security. But when we are intentionally serving, we are more apt to consider the needs of others. Intentionality—that understanding that we are pursuing something—helps the process move along. When we choose to serve, we develop patience, thoughtfulness, and empathy. It’s great practice.
Loving others in God’s way requires prayer. Love does not end. So if we love someone, we cannot stop. Maybe that is why we are called to pray for our enemies. This kind of love extends past the normal, human kinds of love. This is the God part of love, those impossible requirements of love. It is supernatural. Prayer is where we find this God-level love for others, even the “how to” parts of it.
Paul also talks about what love is not. Love doesn’t compare, envy, or boast. It doesn’t claim to be right; it is not arrogant, rude, or impolite. It doesn’t have to have its way. It is not irritable or resentful. These ways of relating are human, but service and prayer are two things that can help us move into the supernatural power of God’s love.
This is a lot. It’s a challenge for me. I think of this 16-year-old and her choices, and how parts of me want to be right and have their way. But I will be still, move my fears aside, and prayerfully consider. I will bring God into these questions of how to love her well.
The more time I spend with others and the more time our team spends in service, the more opportunities we have to mess up. Yet each time is a learning chance. Prayerful service gives us all tremendous opportunities to grow in love. The farther and deeper and wider we are stretched in serving others, the more God reaches in and builds us better. His love for us is careful; He watches over us and gently leads us. His plans for us are clear. His love is perfect.
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