The School of Love

When I was young, there were a few years when I was just the right age to be a fishing partner with my Grandpa. I was old enough to help him and keep him company, but not old enough to be absorbed by jobs and girls—and whatever else a boy might be distracted by. Those years contain some of my best memories of childnood. I spent a lot of time with my Grandpa preparing to fish, fiddling with the boat, fishing, eating snacks, cleaning fish, and telling stories afterword. In the process, I heard a lot of his more or less unfiltered takes on life and the world.

There are a couple of his sayings that have stuck with me over the years. I hated both of them when I was a kid, maybe that is why they stuck in my mind for so long. But now that I am a greatgrandfather myself I think I understand what he was trying to say to me.

The first one of the sayings I hated was, “I got a celler full of sorry.” He would sometimes say this to me when I apologized for something that I should have known better than to do. I always thought that was a kind of mean thing to say, but now I think I know what he meant. Saying sorry does not undo evil. It is far better to refuse evil in the first place than to try to brush-off intentional bad behavior with a half-baked apology. But this is probably an article for another day.

The saying I want to lean into a bit today is this, “You don’t learn nothin’ til it costs you somethin’.” I hated this saying when I was a kid because it just seemed wrong to me. I learned things every day and it didn’t cost me anything.

Or, so I thought.

The truth is, the Bible teaches this idea in many ways and in many places. Consider this passage from 1st Peter:

Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh,
      arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, 
for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 
     so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh 
     no longer for human passions 
          but for the will of God. 
1 Peter 4:1-2[ESV]

Now, to be fair, I seriously doubt that my grandpa had this verse in mind when he was saying that, but the principle is the same. His point was that costly lessons were not quickly forgotten. If you read this passage from 1st Peter carefully you will see, that is Peter’s point as well.

Once you have suffered you are not likely to commit the same sin again. You will stop being lured by the lie of quick pleasure, easy money, and selfish pursuits. You will remember the pain and realize that the best path is not always the quick and easy path. The pain will remind you that following God is in the long run both the best and the most rewarding path. Pain does not last forever, but the joy of God’s presence does.

However, pain does more than reinforce our memories and alter our priorities. It teaches us to love. By experiencing pain we learn what it feels like to hurt, and what the hurting people around us need.

In 2nd Corinthians Paul explains the process of growing in love like this:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
     the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 
          who comforts us in all our affliction, 
so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, 
     with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
 2 Cor 1:3-4[ESV]

God is our comfort in distress, and this is a blessing beyond all words to those who are in desperate need of comfort. But God’s comfort does more than just encourage us in our pain, it teaches us how it feels to truly hurt, and maybe more importantly, it teaches us how to comfort others in their pain.

We resist pain, we run from the very idea of pain, fortunately there is no escape. Pain teaches us in every area of life. But most importantly, pain teaches us to love, if we will allow God to touch and heal us. The healing we receive from God becomes both our model and our motivation for loving others.

This Week

This week, let’s not bury our pain but learn from it. Let’s allow God to comfort us so that we may be instruments of comfort to those around us who are hurting. We need to allow our pain to soften our hearts toward God and those around us. We need to share the comfort we have received. As we do this, our burdens will inexplicably become more bearable and our hearts will be healed as we give the comfort God has given us to others.

Have a great week!