The Impossible Love List – Love Believes All Things

The final three traits in The Impossible Love List are bound together in a very beautiful way. Their relationship to one another begins on the bedrock of belief.

“I believe,
help my unbelief!”
~ Mark 9:24 ~

I look at the phrase, Love Believes All Things and the first thing I ask myself is, “What do I believe, and how could that be a demonstration of love?” And I wonder, is the accuracy of my beliefs connected to the success of that demonstration? In other words, if my beliefs are unsound, if I believe things that are untrue, will that hamper or prevent me from showing love by believing all things?

If all truth originates and resides in God, and I anchor myself to Him, then I anchor myself to The Truth; I believe The Truth. Christ followers are often called Believers. It’s one of the primary ways I am characterized in scripture.

The Word says that as a Believer, I am provided for in every situation I find myself in. Whether or not I understand the full breadth of what’s happening around me, I have enough truth within my grasp to move forward, (doesn’t necessarily mean I will…. sigh). I might ask myself, “of all the things I don’t know about this particular situation, what do I know?” It helps me orient when I feel disoriented because for every one thing I understand, there are a hundred things I don’t. Nearly always, while I may not get the answers to my many questions, remembering what I believe (what is true), is more than enough to sustain me in my disorientation. That’s a really big deal.

When I think of loving someone by believing all things, I think about being a conduit for that kind of critical orientation. You can bring stability, calm and peace when you help someone anchor or re-anchor to truth. Sometimes they are so hidden in the dark, you believe in their stead while they writhe in the fire of their crisis. Hopefully you can eventually help them grab hold of truth for themselves. But either way, you demonstrate believing all things and God says, that is love.

Parents love their wayward child by believing all things. We love people who are grief stricken by believing all things. We love people in any kind of transition or crisis by believing all things. When you help anchor someone to truth, it’s not really different from throwing a lifeline to a drowning man. He may still be in the water, but he is no longer drowning. From that new orientation you open up for him the possibility of experiencing hope, the next trait in our impossible list. When someone has hope they then have the potential to endure, the final trait. It’s a profound sequence, and easy to see why it’s ordered as it is.

Today, you and I will be in close proximity to many people who are in some phase of personal transition. Those transitions will likely run the full spectrum of the human experience. AND all those encounters carry the potential for us to enter in, as agents of love, by believing all things. That is a Spirit led transaction. I know then where my focus is to be.

“You are my witnesses,”
says the Lord,
“my servant whom I have chosen,
so that you may consider
and believe in me,
and understand that I am he.
No god was formed before me,
and none will outlive me.”
~ Isaiah 43:10 ~