This Week In Review Feb. 3, 2007

On Saturday, I discussed how we sometimes blame other people for our own issues instead of working to grow beyond them. Starting on Monday, I posted some thoughts as part of a series, which is based on part of a song. Did you recognize it? “I don’t know what you came to do, but I came to praise the Lord”. On Monday, I talked about agendas and interests that we all have and our need to pray for each other so that our agendas fall in line with God’s agenda. On Tuesday, the topic was the affirmation of the spiritual notion that regardless of how people treat me, I am going to treat them as God would have me treat them. On Wednesday, I wrote about the need to stop worrying about what God’s purpose for other people are and devote ourselves to figuring out what is His purpose for us. That should keep us busy enough to prevent us from sticking our noses in other people’s business! On Thursday, this series was wrapped up with the notion that one way we can praise the Lord is by allowing His will to guide our actions and words in our relationships with each other.

Below are some questions from comments you left this past week. Check out my responses.

“The type of love God has for us is agape…is this the kind I should have for “one another”…?” Many Christians like to separate the concept of love into three categories using Greek terms. They talk about agape (Godly or perfect love), eros (romantic love) and philia (friendship love). It is my strong opinion that love is love and it all flows from one source (God). The difference is how we express love. We express love differently with our romantic partners than we do with our friends or family members or others. The main point is that ALL love comes from God and if we are truly connected to Him, then we can love everyone, however we may define their relationship to us. (For an excellent interpretation of these three Greek terms for love, read Dr. Martin Luther King’s sermon, “Loving Your Enemies”.) So the answer to this question is this: Whoever “one another” is, just love them because God has given you the capacity to love. Don’t worry about putting a fancy Greek label on it.

Is it possible to love Him, without loving ourselves? The short answer is, “Yes.” In the Bible, we are commanded to love God totally and then we are exhorted to love others as we love ourselves. Those two commandments imply two things:
(1) That we can love God in spite of how flawed we are (2) The extent to which we love others is dependent on our level of self-love. So, can I love God as messed up and stressed up as I may be? Yes. Can I love others if I do not love myself? No.

I was just reading your profile, and would love to know what this really means, “I am single today but hopefully not for the rest of my life!” Are you really hoping to pass through your singleness some day? I think I will address this more fully in a future post, but the short answer for today is the following: With God’s help, I am on a continuous journey to transform my singleness into blessedness, but I hope one day to be married to a good woman (Nia Long, are you listening?) and to reap all of the benefits that a spiritually sanctioned marriage has to offer.

Are you on target for your new book, which should release February 2007? I am prayerful that my new book will be available this month.

I simply want to know if there is a difference in an agenda and an expectation? As it relates to those unspoken and sometimes secret motivations that influence our thoughts and actions, there is no difference between those two words. Where we tend to run into problems in our relationships is when we do not correctly decipher one’s intentions (agendas) and we discover after the fact that their intentions do not match our own. Making things worse is the fact that at times, both of us may not be factoring in what God’s “agenda” is. Rather, we are both trying to run our own programs and have things our way. (This is a win-lose way of doing things.)

I am confused about the term “date”; when you get a moment, explain to me exactly how this relates to me as a Single Christian? At the risk of sounding “un-romantic”, I define “dating” as an information gathering process. Boy meets girl. Something about each catches the other’s eye. They want to know more. They “date” to find out more about the other person. And in instances with a happy ending, they learn enough about each other to get married and live happily ever after. But even when dating does not lead to marriage, there still was information that was transmitted. Hopefully, we all will learn and grow from our dating experiences whether they end on a good or a bad note.