NorthStar Community Daily Devotional

April 16

Scripture focus: Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 1 John 4:11-12 NIV

I was reminded of how easy it is to get confused about the nature of love while listening to someone’s fifth step this week (for further information about the 12-step process, visit our website). The fifth step is when we share the exact nature of our wrongs with God, self and another person. My friend started slow. “I just don’t understand why I have to do this,” she confessed. “I know that this step has been recommended to me, I’ve studied the materials, but I just don’t get it.” I won’t bore you with the details, but ultimately, her need to understand almost derailed the entire experience.

Our need to understand, although perfectly normal and expected, is sometimes a smokescreen and can become a defect of character. If our need to understand is a higher core value than the desire to love others well, we’re missing the big picture. We can know a lot of stuff and still miss the point of life. In a world with so much communication opportunities – twitter and texting and sexting and face book – it’s easy to see how we might confuse living life with watching life from a nice, safe distance.

The plain and simple truth for my friend (and the rest of us) is that she did wrong – a bunch of times. Instead of pausing to prepare, taking responsibility for her wrong doing, and ultimately trying to figure out how one goes about righting wrongs – she wanted to understand.

Finally I said to my friend, “What exactly do you not understand that in any way changes the bottom line here – you did wrong and you are trying to out how to proceed from here.”

One of my favorite parts of Marion’s memorial service is the fact that no one had to lie. When her pastor spoke of her, I recognized who he was talking about. As Pete spoke, his stories were true – and not particularly cleaned up (she would have been displeased if he had sanitized her life).

Marion lived life without a driving need to understand mysterious things. She did not linger on trying to make sense of losses and setbacks, blessings and good gifts. She did try quite intentionally to love God and others. This was difficult work. People didn’t always behave. She didn’t always get what she wanted or perceived she needed at different junctures in her life. Ultimately, all was well with her soul. Why? She knew who held her hand. Part of living by faith is learning to live with mysteries and uncertainty. Although probably not her favorite thing in the world, as the years marched on, she learned how to live reasonably contented in this world – and that’s a rare and beautiful life.



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