Love Everybody, Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People

Bob Goff

Pulled from Chapter 4 “The Yellow Truck”

Some of us have been told what we want our whole lives. We’ve been told we should want to go out for sports or not. We should want a college education or a graduate degree or a particular career. We should want to date this person and not the other one. None of it is mean-spirited, of course, and no one means any harm. It just doesn’t sit well with us.

A similar, but different problem happens in our churches and schools and faith communities too. We’re told by someone what God wants us to do and not do. We’re told we shouldn’t drink or cuss or watch certain movies. We’re told we should want to have “quiet times” in the mornings and talk to strangers about “a relationship with God.” We’re told we should want to go on “mission trips” and “witness” to people, and sometimes we do it even if we don’t really know what the words mean—but often, just for a while. After long enough, what looks like faith isn’t really faith anymore. It’s just compliance. The problem with mere compliance is it turns us into actors. Rather than making decisions ourselves, we read the lines off the script someone we were told to respect handed to us, and we sacrifice our ability to decide for ourselves.

The fix for all this is as easy as the problem is hard. Instead of telling people what they want, we need to tell them who they are. This works every time. We’ll become in our lives whoever the people we love the most say we are.

God did this constantly in the Bible. He told Moses he was a leader and Moses became one. He told Noah he was a sailor and he became one. He told Sarah she was a mother and she became one. He told Peter he was a rock and he led the church. He told Jonah he’d be fish food and, well, he was. If we want to love people the way God loved people, let God’s Spirit do the talking when it comes to telling people what they want. All the directions we’re giving to each other aren’t getting people to the feet of Jesus. More often, the unintended result is they lead these people back to us.

Here’s the problem: when we make ourselves the hall monitor of other people’s behavior, we risk having approval become more important than Jesus’ love.

Another problem with trying to force compliance is it only lasts for a while, usually only until the person gets a different set of directions from someone else. Faith lasts a lifetime and will carry us through the most difficult of times without a word spoken.

Telling people what they should want turns us into a bunch of sheriffs. People who are becoming love lose the badge and give away grace instead. Tell the people you meet who they’re becoming, and trust that God will help people will find their way toward beautiful things in their lives without you.

Bob Goff calls himself a "recovering lawyer" because after practicing law for 25 years, then becoming the Hon. Consul to Uganda, he gave up his law firm to pursue writing and speaking full time. The best part has been connecting with so many people who are on a terrific adventure as well. He has written the book 'Love Does' and just released his new book 'Love Everybody, Always'.

 

 

More from Bob Goff:

Watch a clip from the Catalyst Insider: Episode 37 // Love Everybody, Always

Listen to our Catalyst Podcast: Episode 443: What's the Next Most Courageous Step for You?

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