“If you love me, keep my commands.
John 14:15 (NIV)
Love With Something To Do
Half past two at a small bank, and the man at the loan desk is saying no again. He’s careful about it. He knew this woman’s father, he has the folder open where she can see he read it, and he says the whole sentence slowly, including the part about what she could bring back in the fall.
Jesus is telling his friends he’s going away, and he tells them this: if you love me, keep my commands. In the same conversation he tells them the world won’t see him much longer and that they will, and that he won’t leave them like orphans.
He takes their love for him as a fact and tells them what to do with it. A person who loves him does what he said, and the love shows up in the world there, where it can be seen and where it costs something. He gives it to people who are about to lose him, so it’s the thing they can still do when he isn’t in the room to be loved in person.
I decided a long time back that I’d quit saying “we should get together sometime” unless I was ready to name a day, and I’ve kept it.
The man at the desk chose how he’d say no, and he did the choosing while he was still reading the folder. Keeping what Jesus said usually takes that shape: one other person in the room on an ordinary afternoon, and an answer that has to be given anyway.
The door opened while he was writing, and a boy came in with his backpack still on and sat down in the chair across the desk without saying what he’d come for. The man put the pen down and said, “Take your time.”
A Prayer to Remember
I’m reading this with my mind already on the rest of the day. I love you, God, and I’d have a hard time pointing anybody to where that was true this week. Make me a person who keeps what you said on the days when keeping it is inconvenient.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
