Stagnant Pond or Flowing Waters?
I wonder why it’s such a compliment to tell a woman she looks like a breath of spring, but not to tell her she looks like the end of hard winter. Isn’t that the same thing?
I wonder why it pleases her to say time stands still when you look into her face, but not to say her face would stop a clock. Why?
I wonder why people who punish a child for lying will tell the same child, "Just say I’m not home."
I wonder why, when the preacher says, "In closing..." he doesn’t.
I wonder why a speaker who "needs no introduction" gets one anyway.
Many things in this world could cause us to wonder. But one of the most strange to me is that why God would love us.
The movie “Grease” is a fun 50’s musical about a guy and a girl who fall in love. The prim and proper Sandy, played by Olivia Newton John, gives her heart to Danny, played by John Travolta. Unfortunately her heart is not handled with care and she finds herself being hurt by the one that she loves. Not wanting to give up, Olivia sings the song “Hopelessly Devoted to You.” Although she had been neglected and hurt, she would not stop loving her true love.
Why? Why does Sandy keep loving Danny? Why is she “hopelessly devoted” to someone who keeps trampling on her feelings, saying not so nice things about her when she’s not around, acting like she doesn’t exist when his friends are by his side?
We see this situation happening around us every day. God is “Hopelessly Devoted” to us. He loves us without reservation, holding nothing back.
Why? Why does God keep loving us? Why is He “hopelessly devoted” to someone who keeps trampling on His feelings, uses His name in vain, gets upset when He doesn’t answer our prayers the way we want them answered, acts like He doesn’t exist whenever our friends are around? It seems curious.
God wants us to remain in His love, but do we? To often we find ourselves as another song says, “Looking For Love in All the Wrong Places.”
Love is a complex word. Ask 100 people what love means to them and you’ll probably get at least 50 different answers. Maybe more. People say: I love my wife. I love my cats. I love cherry cheesecake. I love to garden. I love to paint. I love old movies. I love.. well, you fill in the blank. Love is a very complex word. These mentioned (and others), I would hope, are different types of love.
Often love can be misplaced or misdirected. People end up “looking for love in all the wrong places”. They ignore pure love and seek impure love. Couples grow apart and one seeks love from an outside source. One, or maybe both, start to have an affair. They meet in secret looking for something that belongs only in a marriage of husband and wife. They end up divorced or living in the shell of something God considers sacred.
Women (and I’m sure men, even though we don’t often hear that side) often stay in abusive relationships. One spouse is possessive and won’t allow the other to have outside friends or one demands that the other wait on them hand and foot. Maybe one is verbally abusive or, worse yet, physically abusive. Why won’t the one being abused leave? The most common answer? “Because I love him (or her).” They’re looking for love in all the wrong places.
All of us – all of us – need affection. From the moment of birth, we reach out for the warm embrace of our mother’s arms. As children we would climb into dad’s lap, to feel a pat on the back, to wrestle with or be tickled by someone who loves us. And that need doesn’t disappear as we approach and enter adulthood. We may try to deny it, we may learn to disguise it, but the need for affection knows no age.
Now, some of us here today may feel the need for affection more keenly, more acutely than others. God has created all of us with a need for human affection that can only be met when other humans express affection to us, and for some of us, the need to be loved is one of our top needs.
Think with me for just a moment. If you were given only ONE WORD to describe God, what would that word be? What single word best describes His heart for people? What word best describes how God has related to you? Have you thought of your word? Okay now keep your word locked in your mind, and don’t change it. What was your word? (The majority should choose “love” or a form of the word.)
There’s an old song by Dionne Warwick that said, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love. That’s the very thing that there’s just too little of.” If we stop and think about how we describe God, God is love, then what we really need is God, sweet God. And not only do we need the love of God, but we need to share the love of God.
One of the assignments the youth in our confirmation class are required to complete is the writing of their faith statement, what they, as Christians, believe. Now, you know that youth are not thrilled about having to write papers and I told them that I’ve had to write a faith statement 3 times.
In explaining to them what a faith statement was, I remember, in writing my first one, that I called myself a “stagnant pond” Christian. Now most of you know that a stagnant pond may receive water in the form of rainfall, but the water doesn’t leave the pond. There is no movement out of the water. It just stagnates. The water turns green and starts to smell.
That’s how my life was. I was a “stagnant pond”. I was receiving the love of God but there was no movement out of the love. The love was stagnating in me.
Now, you take that pond, full of murky, green, smelly, still water and you cut an opening into it. And you allow that still water to flow out of the pond. Then that stagnate pond has changed into flowing water. And an amazing thing happens. The water clears up. It loses that smell. It starts to flow down and out and nourish things.
God took hold of me one day and He cut an opening into my hard heart. All the love I had been receiving, that had stagnated, started flowing out and began nourishing things. I had been changed from a “stagnant pond” Christian to a “flowing water” Christian.
Of course a stagnant pond won’t clear up and lose it’s smell overnight. And I didn’t either. But people that knew me before saw the change. The waters of love had started flowing out of me.
I couldn’t hide it, even if I had wanted to. I’m sure you’ve all seen someone who’s been out in the sun too long without sunscreen or a hat. You can just look at their sunburned face, all red, and know that they got too much sun.
Do you remember the story of when Moses came down from Mt. Sinai and the people couldn’t bear to look at him because they saw the reflection of God’s glory in his face? People can look at your sunburned face and tell you got too much sun but are you so filled with the love of God that they look at you and know you got the Son? Is the love you are receiving from God flowing out of you and does it show in your face? Can people see the love of God in our faces?
All of us need affection. Jesus says in verse 12, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus is telling us to share our love with one another. Don’t let the love given to you by God stagnate, let it flow out to others, nourishing them.
Now you might be thinking to yourself, “Okay, John, how do we let the love flow out to others?” Well, I’m glad you asked. It’s simple. Let’s practice right now. Say, “I love you.” [People respond]
Why, thank you! Now say, “You’re special to me.” [People respond]
Oh, now you’re making me blush! Okay, say, “You’re my little Snugglebunny.” [People respond]
There, now, that wasn’t so hard, was it? And I kinda enjoyed it! . . . .And if you can do it for me, you can do it for a loved one, a friend, or a brother or sister in Christ. They won’t have to look for love in all the wrong places and they’ll be receiving love from the source of all love who is hopelessly devoted to each one of us.
