The Next Generation: Does Love Mean Acceptance?

The notion that love means you must accept every decision a person makes is one of the greatest lies in this generation.

That lie drives us to then act like we have to embrace even the worst of a person. All in the name of love. But is that idea of love even love? Can you love someone and not accept what they are doing?

If we can't then love is truly dead. The very act of loving someone means that there are times that you must draw a line in the sand and say "This far and no further".

To not do so is to communicate the idea that we could care less about what happens to that person. Creating boundaries and saying no to our loved ones then implies that we do care what happens to them and that we won't just sit by and let them harm themselves.

I'm sitting here writing the blog while watching my son run at the swing set screaming "I AM SUPERMAN!" jumping headlong onto the swing seat and swinging crazily forward.

Almost every time he does it my skips a little because I can picture him either missing the swing entirely or careening off and breaking a limb or busting his head. So when I see him start to get a little too crazy I remind him that he needs to dial it down some.  

Why? It's because I love him that I tell him no. How is that any different than not accepting and even speaking up when one of our loved ones starts making bad decisions? It's not...not at all.

Real love...true love means saying no, it means saying "I will not accept this", it means making some difficult stands. As a follower of Christ, I look to his words and examples in life.

Because this very issue is something my family and I are struggling through right now I think back to when Christ was confronted with a sticky situation that speaks directly to this idea. The religious elite of the day had been trying to trap Jesus and where coming up with all kinds of "what if" scenarios. But this one actually involved a human. 

They had "caught" a woman in the act of sexual intercourse. They drug her screaming and naked in front of Jesus. They flung her into the dirt at his feet and said to him (paraphrased) "The law says that she deserves death. What do you say?"

One of the reasons I think Jesus is awesome is found in this story. How does he react? What does he say?  Nothing. He stoops down and starting scribbling in the dirt. It doesn't say what he scribbled but he did none the less. I picture the religious leaders looking at each other with confusion.

Jesus then stands up and says "He who is without sin caste the first stone". See the leaders had picked up stones to kill her but after hearing these wise words slowly dropped their rocks and quietly walked away.

And here's where it gets really interesting...because you have this woman that had been caught in a huge taboo during this time period and shes sitting at the feet of a Rabbi. What he says next should speak volumes to us. He looked at her and asked "Is there anyone left to condemn you?" 

He didn't judge, he didn't condemn her. He loved her. And we know that by what he said next. "Then go and leave your life of sin." This woman was being exploited for nothing more than her body. Whoever the man was, he was treating her like his personal play thing instead of a human being worthy of love.

Jesus saw this and wouldn't allow her to just stay where she was. He loved her enough to give her another way. Ultimately the decision was hers to make but her encounter with Jesus gave her another option. Love is messy and sloppy and will make you walk into the gray areas of life. But to love someone means that we must be willing to walk those places with them. 

Love doesn't mean that we must accept every choice a person makes but it does mean that we need to give them other options. We should love them enough to not leave them where they are but walk with them to a healthier place. 

The decision to get healthy will always lie with that person and there may be times we walk away (that a topic for a whole other blog post) but to see someone and just leave them right where they are...that's not love. That's cheap and gross. There is no great way to end this post because I don't have the answers.

All I know is that if I say that I love someone...I'm not going to keep my mouth shout and that I'm going to walk with them to the best of  my ability.