(First posted August 19, 2010)

That’s a significant question.

We read. A lot. We hear. A lot. We say A lot.

And then we live. A lot.

Some of us are very comfortable keeping the input and the output separate. Some of us avoid the hard work of taking the interesting ideas we hear and the fascinating role models we read about and working to understand how all of that would work in real life, in our lives.

But you know what? Most of us actually are trying to make a connection. Most of us are attempting to change, to grow, to deepen. We are attempting, like the wise man, to hear the words of Jesus and put them into practice.

I mean, when we read that Jesus says,

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

we do it.

• We listen to someone who annoys us and we say, “what would it look like to love this person in the way Jesus loves me?”
• We think, “what specific loving action can I do?”
• We pick one “another” out of all of the “anothers” in our life and we identify one specific action today that will prefer them to us and then we make sure that we do that one specific action today.
• We don’t look for the most extreme, most “anyone but that person” person, but we start with the first name and action that comes to mind when we say, “So God. Who would you like to love through me today?”
• Right after we read this post, we pick up the phone or we put down the keyboard or we pick up the floor.

Right?

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