“With the Savior’s help, we can learn to love as He loved. It may require a change of heart—but we can be tutored by the Savior how to really take care of each other.”
I was recently challenged to think about loving all of God’s children. As I thought about it, I first thought, “I’m not very good at that”. I struggle at times to love neighbors who leave nasty notes on our car repeatedly when we don’t park to their liking, insensitive co-workers, strangers on the street who I feel take advantage of others, family members who repeat the same little offenses over and over again, or even that person I’ve needed to forgive for a while, but haven’t quite been able to. The following are thoughts on how I’ve learned to love those who have recently been harder for me to love.
“One of those gifts is that Christ gave you and me an unlimited capacity to love. That includes the capacity to love the unlovable and those who not only do not love you but presently persecute and despitefully use you (see Matthew 5:44–45). With the Savior’s help, we can learn to love as He loved. It may require a change of heart—most certainly a softening of our hearts—as we are tutored by the Savior how to really take care of each other.” (Russell M. Nelson, “Four Gifts from the Savior”, full text here, emphasis added)
Tutored to Love
I was recently tutored about how I could love someone. I’ve struggled for a while to know how to love homeless individuals or those that ask for money in the streets. Before my current job, I worked with refugees and foreign victims of human trafficking, some of whom were in homeless situations. I loved working with my clients, but a couple of very negative experiences I’ve had trying to assist other homeless people, left me with not only uneasy, but negative feelings. The feelings didn’t sit well with me. I didn’t like that I had them, but I also wanted to feel right about how I could help people in this situation.
I was riding the metro into work not too long ago, and a common occurrence happened- someone was asking for money in the metro car. But this time it was a little different. The individual announced to a car full of people that he needed help and everyone ignored him. Everyone continued to look down on their phones and ignore him. It created an awkward tension in the car.
I was reading my scriptures at the time and it hit me like a ton of bricks–what an ironic contrast it was that I was trying to become more Christ-like by reading the scriptures, and there I was, ignoring and rejecting this man, the same way some ignored and rejected Christ in the scriptures. I then remembered, with shame, the negative feelings I had towards people in this situation. I felt an immediate rebuke from God, but it quickly followed with an idea popping into my mind of a way to handle the situation. This thought hadn’t occurred to me before, of how I could help this person and others like them, and feel right about it in my heart and mind. The spirit had tutored me how I could love this person. It was a tender mercy from God, for which I was so grateful.
Again, “with the Savior’s help, we can learn to love as He loved. It may require a change of heart—but we can be tutored by the Savior how to really take care of each other.”
Increasing in Love
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Matthew 22:36-39)
“We cannot truly love God if we do not love our fellow travelers on this mortal journey. Likewise, we cannot fully love our fellowmen if we do not love God, the Father of us all. … We are all spirit children of our Heavenly Father and, as such, are brothers and sisters. As we keep this truth in mind, loving all of God’s children will become easier” (Thomas S. Monson, “Love—the Essence of the Gospel,” Ensign, May 2014, 91).
So, how can we increase our love of fellow men and of God, as they work in tandem?
As we obey God’s commandments, we receive blessings and feel His love for us. But it does not work the same way as a linear equation. It is rather a cyclical and iterative process. Not only does obedience produce blessings and feeling more of God’s love in our lives, but this leads us to obey more because we love God.
“The divine love of God turns ordinary acts into extraordinary service. Divine love is the motive that transports simple words into sacred scripture. Divine love is the factor that transforms reluctant compliance with God’s commandments into blessed dedication and consecration. Love is the measure of our faith, the inspiration for our obedience, and the true altitude of our discipleship.” (Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “The Love of God”, October 2009)
We increase our love for our fellow men by increasing in charity.
Charity is a spiritual gift that we can pray for and live for; it is “bestowed upon all who are true followers of … Jesus Christ” (Moroni 7:48).
I had never previously thought of charity as a spiritual gift. A gift is something given, not earned. We can’t just practice charity, we must ask for it to be bestowed upon us.
“We must remember that those mortals we meet in parking lots, offices, elevators, and elsewhere are that portion of mankind God has given us to love and to serve. It will do us little good to speak of the general brotherhood of mankind if we cannot regard those who are all around us as our brothers and sisters.” (Thomas S. Monson, “Love—the Essence of the Gospel”)
I know that as we pray for the spirit to tutor us about how to love people and as we pray for the spiritual gift of charity, we will see all around us as our brothers and sisters and feel the love of God towards them.
Forgiving to Love
Another roadblock in loving all of God’s children is not forgiving those who have wronged us. I realized recently that I still had ill feelings toward someone that had wronged me years ago. Even though I thought I had forgiven them multiple times over, I couldn’t figure out why I still had these ill feelings towards them.
“A gift the Savior offers you is the ability to forgive. Through His infinite Atonement, you can forgive those who have hurt you and who may never accept responsibility for their cruelty to you. The Savior will grant you the ability to forgive anyone who has mistreated you in any way.”(Russell M. Nelson, “Four Gifts from the Savior”, full text here)
I came across a talk given at a BYU Women’s Conference called “Why We Forgive” by Terry Warner, the author of the book Bonds That Make Us Free.
In this talk he shares the example of a woman who couldn’t forgive her father for offenses. He says, “I asked whether she had forgiven her father. She said she thought she had but wasn’t sure because she still had no peace. So then I asked her this question: “Have you sought his forgiveness for your hard feelings, your resentment toward him all these years?” She had not. It had never occurred to her to do so. So I suggested that forgiveness consists not of forgetting what happened; it consists of repenting of unforgiving feelings about what happened.”
It had never occurred to me that yes, I may have forgiven this person in my past who had wronged me, but I had never asked for forgiveness, for the bad feelings that I had developed toward him/her because of what had originally happened. He/Shemay have been at fault for the first offense, but I was at fault for harboring ill feelings. Now I was the one who needed forgiveness.
“My disciples, in days of old, sought occasion against one another and forgave not one another in their hearts; and for this evil they were afflicted and sorely chastened. Wherefore, I say unto you, that ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin. I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.” (Doctrine and Covenants 64:8–10)
Warner says about this passage that “This scripture does not imply that we are responsible for the events that happen to us. It implies instead that we are responsible for how we respond to those events—how they affect us. “
I know that we experience peace as we not only forgive others who may have wronged us, but also as we repent of how we respond to the events, including harboring ill feelings.
“We are created in the image of our heavenly parents; we are God’s spirit children. Therefore, we have a vast capacity for love—it is part of our spiritual heritage. What and how we love not only defines us as individuals… Love is the defining characteristic of a disciple of Christ…Try and keep on trying until that which seems difficult becomes possible—and that which seems only possible becomes a habit and a real part of you.” (Dieter F.Uchtdorf ,The Love of God)
Who in your life do you find hard to love or forgive? I invite you to ask God to tutor you to know how to do both. If you ask with sincerity, I know He’ll show you how.
Find other articles about love here.
Photo: Ev from Unsplash
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