Warts and All
I want people to love me warts and all. I am not perfect. I will always have faults. But I want to be loved despite my flaws. I want to be loved for ALL of me and this includes my flaws. They are a part of me and although I don't necessarily like them they contribute to who I am. Is it wrong to want to be loved for who you are, warts and all?? I want to be loved for who I am even if I never changed. Is this something unreasonable?
Can you care about someone's godliness yet still love them even if they never changed? Or should you expect people to change in areas of godliness? Is it true love that wants to see the person change or true love that loves them despite their faults??
I want to grow and change and be more like Jesus. I want his Spirit to be refining me. But I also want to be loved warts and all.
I guess God loved us warts and all. He loved us even when we were his enemies. He loved us so much that he chose to die on a cross for us. But then his love changes us. He love us so much that he saved us to be made like his son. How does this translate into how we are to love each other?? I am so confused.
Here is one man's interpretation of God's love...
Can you care about someone's godliness yet still love them even if they never changed? Or should you expect people to change in areas of godliness? Is it true love that wants to see the person change or true love that loves them despite their faults??
I want to grow and change and be more like Jesus. I want his Spirit to be refining me. But I also want to be loved warts and all.
I guess God loved us warts and all. He loved us even when we were his enemies. He loved us so much that he chose to die on a cross for us. But then his love changes us. He love us so much that he saved us to be made like his son. How does this translate into how we are to love each other?? I am so confused.
Here is one man's interpretation of God's love...
Your Love Changes Me
(Nathan Tasker)
I look in the mirror at the man in front of me
Just a hazy reflection of all the things I want to be
So frustrated by all the compromise
So embarrassed by the way I feast on the hollow lies
When your truth is so much sweeter
And your love is so much deeper
Well you cannot love me more and you will not love me more
Though I come to you with nothing I receive your righteousness
I come just as I am, oh, but here's the mystery
While I can come without changing, your love changes me
I sometimes imagine when I am all alone
Given some more time I could have done this on my own
How can I be so blinded by my pride?
How can I forget I was dead before you gave me life?
For you are the great life giver and you are the promise keeper
Well you cannot love me more and you will not love me more
Though I come to you with nothing I receive your righteousness
I come just as I am, oh, but here's the mystery
While I can come without changing, your love changes me
Nothing of my own I bring simply to your cross I cling
Nothing of my own so I know it's you alone that gives me everything
For you loved before I loved you and you've done what I could never do
Well you cannot love me more and you will not love me more
Though I come to you with nothing I receive your righteousness
I come just as I am, oh, but here's the mystery
While I can come without changing, your love changes me
(Nathan Tasker)
I look in the mirror at the man in front of me
Just a hazy reflection of all the things I want to be
So frustrated by all the compromise
So embarrassed by the way I feast on the hollow lies
When your truth is so much sweeter
And your love is so much deeper
Well you cannot love me more and you will not love me more
Though I come to you with nothing I receive your righteousness
I come just as I am, oh, but here's the mystery
While I can come without changing, your love changes me
I sometimes imagine when I am all alone
Given some more time I could have done this on my own
How can I be so blinded by my pride?
How can I forget I was dead before you gave me life?
For you are the great life giver and you are the promise keeper
Well you cannot love me more and you will not love me more
Though I come to you with nothing I receive your righteousness
I come just as I am, oh, but here's the mystery
While I can come without changing, your love changes me
Nothing of my own I bring simply to your cross I cling
Nothing of my own so I know it's you alone that gives me everything
For you loved before I loved you and you've done what I could never do
Well you cannot love me more and you will not love me more
Though I come to you with nothing I receive your righteousness
I come just as I am, oh, but here's the mystery
While I can come without changing, your love changes me
posted by Naomi @ 5:25 PM
5 Comments:
Naomi, this is such a good question/thought to be pondering! So many things to say too...
Firstly, you should have a read of the book 'The Sacred Romance'. Or at least someof it anyway. I;ve written a post on it (September 20, 2006), but basically it addresses the fact that we want - we LONG - to be loved, pursued, for who we are, and this is mostly becuase we were created IN love - ie created in God's image, and He is love, then we are created in love not just out of love (that make sense??). Anyway, read that ifu want furhter thoughts on that! :)
Secondly, I think the key to these questions is that fact which NT has captured so well in his song - the fact that this love CHANGES us.
You are loved for who you are, as God's child, etc, DESPITE faults. But its because of this love that you want to change. We are loved warts and all but this sort of love cannot help but come with a desire to change in response.
Does that make sense? That what i think anyway...
its amazing....the beauty of grace though really isnt it :)
I love NT's song...
I like these lyrics too: "So embarrassed by the way I feast on the hollow lies; When your truth is so much sweeter And your love is so much deeper" - because it shows how selfish we can be even in considering how sin, yet how selfless we need to be. (which is one way we can translate this love to love for each other - a way Jesus so often commands and demonstrates - putting others above ourselves.)
But translating the love that changes etc to our relationships?! I am with you, it is hard and confusing.
I think if you look at the gospel - and what you said "He love us so much that he saved us to be made like his son." it is sacrifical (yes, im aware you would already know this haha) but the point is maybe sacrifical love involves loving people while they arent perfect, becuase thats when its hardest to love. But also loving them so much that, like for yourself, you desire they grow in holiness...again, the desire for their change just like your own springs from the love itself
I dunno, does that make sense?!
Um, none of this ever really occured to me... though I suppose it should have since I basically told someone their flaws were too big for me.
I think I want to be loved, not for, but in spite of my flaws. I think this is how God loves.
Perhaps we have problems when we draw identity from our flaws - we think people can't love us without loving them, and that we won't be the same person without them. But if we don't let them define us maybe it is easier to seperate from them?
Don't really know!
Little, very helpful comment about not letting our flaws define us.
I guess it comes down to being loved despite our flaws but always working on growing to be more like Jesus and letting God's love change us.
And always working on loving people despite their flaws but loving to see them grow.
A poem a friend shared with me not that long ago: 'I love you because of who you are and not in spite of it' Anushka
I think your post hits on one of the tensions in scripture that is resolved only in Christ - God creates us in his image, and even as fallen humanity we bear his image, yet Christ as the image of God is the one in whom we are being transformed to be more like.
You are right that while we were God's enemies he chose to love us in his son (warts and all if you like) yet he is not satisfied to leave us like that (the gift of the spirit in us means we are being transformed into the likeness of Christ, being changed as we live out lives of godliness, waiting for the day when we will know even as we are fully known). But I guess one difference is that we are not God having perfect knowledge and pure motives - so while he can love us as we are yet at the same time in love not leave us as we are, I'm not sure we can say the same for ourselves. Do the things that I find as 'flaws' in others say as much about me as them? [Noticing that what riles me most in others tend to be the things I dislike in myself.] Yet we are encouraged to spur one another on to love and good deeds and gain great joy in seeing others grow in maturity as we seek to present everyone perfect in Christ; so I think it is right to desire growth and change in others for God's glory.
I wonder if it means that we need to be cautious of our motives in desiring change in others - willingly praying for growth in godliness, for them and us, but not blinded by our own selfish desires and motives.
"Do the things that I find as 'flaws' in others say as much about me as them?"
This is so true. Very insightful... It is really helpful to think about taking the log out of our own eye before trying to remove the spec from someone elses. It is easy to ignore our motives or pretend that they are actually good. We can even convince ourselves that they are good.
Helpful thoughts!!
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