because of love.

I'm not sure how to share this without getting too specific and boring you all to death, but it's too good not to share.

Matt knew coming back that a major confrontation had to happen upon his arrival, so we thoroughly anticipated yesterday being a rough day.  And it was...for two hours he and a friend/employee tried to work through several major issues that have been mounting for months.  They could NOT get on the same page, were both becoming more and more heated, and finally, both lost their cool, something that happens VERY rarely with Matt.

Matt immediately apologized for losing his temper, and dejectedly hung his head in his hands, confident that there was no other place to go in this relationship.  It was finished.  There was nothing else he could do.  However, before the friend left, Matt tried one last approach.   Love.  

"If this stuff was happening with just anyone, I wouldn't even care," Matt told the man.  "This is so important, and so heartbreaking, because it's YOU.  YOU are my friend.  I love you.  And these circumstances have abolished all trust, which in turn greatly diminishes our relationship.  And because I love you, this is heartbreaking."

They talked another thirty minutes, and by the time they finished, things were "good enough", patched together and function-able.  But Matt came home with no joy or hope over the conversation, and our evening was full of tears over sin and selfishness, expectations and disappointments, a lost friendship and perhaps a work relationship that needed terminated.  There was nothing much I could say to encourage Matt, and throughout the night I prayed that God might still somehow work in the situation, though it seemed to be closed.

Blessing one...Lucner, though incredibly busy and finally home with his wife and baby, having overheard the argument earlier, called Matt around 8 pm, just to see if he was ok.  (Note to self...these little things, just five minutes of effort, but often overlooked, can transform a person.  DO it!)

Matt tossed and turned all night, sick over the lost friend, broken situation, unfruitful confrontation and generally dejected in ministry here.  

But at 7 am, that same man showed up at our door, looking equally terrible.  

"I couldn't sleep all night.  All this time that you have been trying to tell me these things, and I have never listened.  And I didn't listen yesterday.  I said some terrible, awful things.  And then you told me about your love for me, and I realized for the first time that this whole time you have truly cared about ME.  You haven't been upset about how I've been acting because you want to bring me down, or to hurt me or to trick me, as I had thought. And that changes everything.  I have said and done so many terrible things, and I am SO SORRY.  I am just sick this morning, more sick than I have ever felt.  Please, won't you forgive me?  Please!"

I'm not a crier, but man, seeing these two haggard men embrace this morning in our doorway, transformed by love, I was fighting back tears.

What a beautiful picture of His love.  

He tries to show us how to live, to tell us which way to go.  He tries to bring us closer and closer to Him through holiness.  He tries to give us discipline, and we reject it, buck it, hold firm to our own understanding.  We are sure that He isn't out for our own good, but is out to ruin us, or to harm us.  We're sure that we know what is best for us, and that we need to look out for our own good.

And then, in brief and beautiful and heartbreaking moments, He makes us realize that all of these things He is asking for in us isn't to box us in, or to harm us, but to give us hope and freedom and a future.  It is because of His LOVE for us, His great love.  

And it is that great love that transforms us.  That melts our stubborn hearts.  That changes our perspective.  That takes us from arrogant hot heads into humble and repentant children.  

I'm so incredibly thankful for this miracle of His love in Matt's life, and am so incredibly thankful for the reminder of HIS unwavering love for me...in how many ways am I subconsciously today resisting that transforming love?  

It's why we're His, it's why we're able to be Holy, and it's why we're here.

because of love.