“Love Tree,” part two

So now that I see my love tree needs watering, how do I do that? How does love get produced in my life? Can I do it just by trying harder? By doing the right things? Saying the right things? If I act like I’m loving does that make me loving? I know from my own experiences that it doesn’t work that way. “Fake it ‘til you make it” doesn’t work for love.

In John 15, Jesus says that, actually, God is the love tree. We are just a branch on the tree, and being part of the tree is what produces fruit in our lives. When situations crop up, we have the choice of responding however we want … we can draw from ourselves and the world, and produce bitterness, or draw from the Love Tree – God himself – and produce a blossom of love.

If it seems kind of weird to think of God as a tree, blame those Biblical writers … personally, I like the metaphors in Psalms where David compares God to both a rock and a chicken. One of my mentors likes to compare him to a black lab. But more on that later.

One of my favorite things about God is that he never tells us to do things “just because.” He doesn’t say, “Be loving because you ought to,” or “forgive others because you should.” He doesn’t even say, “Because it’s the right thing to do, that’s why.” He always says this: “Because I love you; because I forgive you. That’s why.” In Jeremiah 31:3 he says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have called you.”

When those opportunities blow through where we chose our response between love and something else, we aren’t told to think about fairness or justice or looking holy or faking it … we’re told to think about how overwhelmingly God loves us, and respond accordingly. In John 13:25, Jesus says, “I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you.” “Love each other the way I have loved you (v.34).” 1 Corinthians 14:1 says it this way: “Pursue love above all else.” Galatians 5:6 says “The only thing that counts is faith made effective through love.”