Good and Beautiful and KindSample

A Love That Heals

Goodness. Beauty. Kindness. Three signs of a life well lived. Three realities of God’s presence. Yet they are hard to live into in our fractured world. Whether those fractures are related to politics, race, religion, sexuality, or something else, they often lead to reactivity, impatience, judgmentalism, and the inability to hold space with one another. We carry the stress of our fractured world in our bodies and in our relationships every day.

We might fondly recall the memories of the past, lamenting that those days will never return. But what if it were possible to learn to love in such a way that heals? What if the pain we carry doesn’t have the last word? What if love truly does cover a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8)?

Jesus offers a way of being human that is powerful enough to tear down the walls of hostility we have grown accustomed to. His gospel gives us a soul-healing, enemy-reconciling, truth-telling, justice-embodying, sin-conquering vision. It’s one we can’t live without, especially since most people have not been formed to love well in our society—including within our churches.

It’s easy to see how love—personally and publicly—feels elusive. But what if that could change? What if we submitted ourselves to an ancient path that forms us out of sentimentality and into self-giving love? Out of anger and into compassion? Out of fear and into hospitality?

A good, beautiful, and kind life—the way of Christ’s love—is not something that happens overnight. Love is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). The gifts of the Spirit are given quickly. The fruit of the Spirit is given over time. Sometimes we expect the gifts of the Spirit to do quickly what the fruit of the Spirit is meant to do slowly.

Let’s look at how love, goodness, beauty, and kindness get eaten from our lives and our world—and how we can find a pathway forward.

Lord, You desire us to be formed by Your love. By the end of our journey this week, may we have moved closer to You, to our neighbor, and to ourselves. In Jesus’s name. Amen.