Experience, People, Place

I was watching a basketball game, the other day, and two players (Lebron James and Kyle Kuzma) from the visiting team were playing against two of their ex-teammates (Tristan Thompson and Kevin Love) on the court the former used to call Home. I caught the game after it had tipped off, but a valuable lesson I learned came up at the end of the game. The home team lost to their guests, and Lebron and Kyle went over to their opponents’ side of the court, to say hello to their former colleagues. They exchanged hugs, giggled a little, and even had a brief chat, before hitting their respective locker rooms. I was watching the game on my phone (Fairly decent screen size, so don’t judge!), and I made a screenshot of that moment, where all four of them hugged each other. Instantly, I looked beyond the jerseys they had on, I forgot whose court they were playing on, I forgot which teams they belonged to, and all I could feel was the bond they shared. It spoke volumes of the experiences they’ve had together, which had grown beyond the confines of the arena. It really had me pondering for a bit. Have I seen anything like that before? Of course. So, what made this one special? Well, it came at a time where I’ve questioned people’s loyalty the most.

These past couple of weeks, God has been teaching me a lot from my personal devotions with Him, my interactions with people, listening to podcasts and snippets from tons of sermons. The message was clear: Experience, People, Place. In that order.
“That’s a good word,” I said to myself, “but what does that even mean?”
At first I felt it was because I was hearing people attach so much value to their places of worship than the quality of word and their experiences from interacting with the people. Then I realized it was bigger than that. The structure was more mental than physical – the structures we inadvertently build or the ones people build for us.

At Every Sunday service, I watch people walk in, through the front door, to come experience something (Good music, Great Ambience/someone - JESUS), and when I do get to pray for them, my prayer is that they leave with a tangible experience of God’s love, either via their interactions with the people who welcome them to church, their encounter as they surrender all to Jesus in anticipation of a move, or a general sense of being at home, irrespective of what the building looks like.

Believing that every revealed word of God has written references in scriptures, I dug a little deeper into the Word, and a verse which somewhat encompasses the premise for our salvation struck a different Chord.

John 3:16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” (NLT) .

God’s love for us was a decision He made, thousands of years ago. I mean, a very long time ago, He decided to love a rebellious people – people who would disregard authority; people who would rather harm than protect one another; people who would deprive each other of other
loved ones or material possessions; People who would compete against each other; people who would falsely accuse their neighbours and laugh them to scorn, when they suffer the consequences of their ignorance. God LOVED us. And He’s asking us to do the same. As the express image of Jesus, God requires us to do the same – “Decide to love people, before you meet them.” One question I ask myself, and I think you should do the same is: Is it more difficult to love the people who are already in your life with the same intensity you did before they hurt you, than it is to love people you are yet to meet, knowing they also have the tendency to bring you harm? Take your time to answer this question.

I get exhausted when I read 1 Cor 13:4-8, partly because I feel, just like some other people, I fall short on many levels:

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs. 6Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be restrained; where there is knowledge, it will be dismissed.

It’s a lot to take in, but if we do everything we do from a place of love, the world will literally be a much better place.

Two of several other verses that reference the extent of God’s love for us are Romans 5:8

“But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” and John15:13 “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

I once worked as a customer service representative for a company, and like most companies, it was big on customer satisfaction. We were serving people from all works of life, from a modestly-built Two-storey building. Even though our customers were scattered across a radius of Ten - hundreds of miles, our job was to make them feel as though we were part of their home, having a face-to-face conversation with them, and ensuring we keep them as faithful and satisfied customers. It wasn’t an easy task, because as humans, our needs change, and so do our demands. We came across perceptive customers, and some rather difficult ones, but the goal of company remained the same – Keep the customer happy. Make them feel you love them. Most of our customers never visited our office or even met any of us, but they could tell a lot about the company we represented by their experience with us, over the phone. The building was insignificant to them. God wants us to tear down the walls that confine us, and let people experience Him through us.

As people who have experienced God’s love and who understand the gravity of the mercy he daily bestows on us, He is asking us to forgive ourselves, first, then Love unconditionally. He’s asking us to forgive as many times as it’s required, and be kind to one another. He’s asking us to pray for those who use us, not only because they need it, but because we need to rid our minds of the excess burden. This word was for me, after all. This singular revelation has healed my mind of a lot.
Where people expect you to be mad, you extend grace towards them. Where people expect you to act irrationally, you take a deep breath and respond in love. I learnt these things in a place of hurt and brokenness – in a place of mental combat. God guided my paths to a place where I felt his presence stronger than I ever did, in the midst of people whose love had no bounds. He helped me realize that I still have so much love to give, but I needed to be intentional about it, and decide beforehand.

I said all that to say this: God is asking us to prepare structures without walls, for people to come experience his love through us - The same love He caused us to experience in Him, through others.

As much as we want to make the exterior look very attractive, the bulk of the work is internal. The goal is to let our actions be so positively influencing that people would crave to know more about who we’ve been with (God) and where we gather to seek him. The goal is that people’s experiences with us should be the same, anywhere we go.

Let the first thing people notice about you be the love you radiate, then the company you keep, before the place you meet.