Love is Having Difficult Conversations

Be on guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong. And do everything in love. -1 Corinthians 16:13-14

The thing that immediately hits me is that you need to be firm in your faith, courageous, and strong in order to love. It’s like the first part is preparing you for the second. Once you are grounded and strong, you can love more.

Love is risk. Love is having difficult conversations with people when they don’t want to hear it. Love is courageous because you don’t know if you’ll be loved back. You are sticking your emotions out there and don’t know if it will be returned.

As the boss, love is having those difficult conversations when the situation is small and before it gets out of hand and their job is on the line. I have to meet with a team member this week because he is showing too many signs of pride and isn’t getting along with the rest of the team. I don’t want to, but love is pointing out what I see now and giving him the opportunity to change rather than waiting for it to get bad enough to fire him.

As a ministry partner, love is standing in the gap and speaking the truth even when I don’t want to. To really show love, I have to stand up, against the other missionaries and on behalf of the Mozambicans. We have a train-wreck of a situation that’s about to happen with the school we are starting - there is a high possibility we’ll start in January with just 8 kids unless a massive shift happens in the core team’s thinking. I don’t want to fight the rest of the team, but in this situation, love looks like calling out the situation for what it is and fighting for the poorest before the problem metastasizes. Running away or staying silent is easy and it won’t work. What is difficult is prayerfully building relationships and finding what I can say to each person to make them realize the situation.

God, give me strength today. Teach me courage, for I want to show real love.