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T Today on the T. Randolph and Friends broadcast T. Randolph talks about “God’s Shoelace”. Many people know that we need to love others, but we want to do it without getting close to them, in their space, or trusting them in their life. Loving people the way God wants us to love people is very, very difficult.
TRUE LOVE IS DIFFICULT
Why is love so difficult? The spectrum lies between grace and law, east and west. If I love by the law, there is structure, rules and I get “points” for doing good to others and God. However, if I love with grace, there is little structure, no reward, no points, and it can be messy. God didn’t say love one another IF or BUT…
He said not only love the people who are friendly, kind and loving to you, but love those who are not lovely, not caring, not kind, not friendly, and not encouraging -He told us to love our enemies. This is difficult.
In a recent article by Corinne Carver in Relevant Magazine, How To Love People You Don’t Even Like, Carver says, “whether it is a negative coworker, an exhausting friendship or a challenging family member, there are times when we just want to give up on people and feel as though all our love and patience has run out.”
However, often times, we fail to ask the question of ourselves…am I a difficult person to love? Carver goes on to say, “This is probably the most crucial question of all. You may be wondering why this would have anything to do with you, but when it comes down to it, we have all been difficult people to love. We have been difficult for our parents, our friends, our spouses, our bosses, our mentors. Examining your own faults can humble you when it is difficult to love someone. Because Jesus didn’t just die for the sin of the difficult person in our life, He died for yours too, and you also need His grace every single day. ”
“…there are times when we just want to give up on people and feel as though all our love and patience has run out.”
LOVE TAKES TRUST
The human condition is that to love takes trust. Love is not just about tolerance. Love is deeper than that, love REQUIRES trust. This is risky and threatening to us, so instead we choose “emotional insulation” from those who might potentially hurt us. Maybe the notion of “love” equates to injury or harm from our growing up years. So when someone says they love us, we cringe, shrink back and run away. Often times this can lead to feelings of not being capable or deserving of the one true love, God’s love. We think of love as conditional, “God will love me…IF”. It has to be earned, so I will do good to get brownie points with God.
At times we will show love to others, without trusting them. In a recent article in Spirit & Truth Blog entitled, Love Requires Trust, author Luke Seavers discusses I Cor. 13, arguably the most profound piece of scriptural text on the subject of love. Seavers talks about how love and trust need to go hand-in-hand, but often we try to separate them.
He writes, “I was recently convicted by this truth that love takes trust. Ministry is meant to flow out of love. That is the whole premise of 1 Corinthians 13: you can have extreme faith, you can prophesy, you can suffer persecution, you can give all your money to the poor, you can serve at a soup kitchen, you can sing at a nursing home, you can preach to a foreign nation… but if you do not have love, it is meaningless.”
“I was convicted because I realized that, in my ministry to the homeless, I was ministering to people that I really did not trust. There are unfortunate stereotypes of homeless people. Many are scammers, ungrateful, and entitled. The problem is, if I minister with these things in mind, I am not believing the best about the person, and I am not fully loving them.”
“… I realized that, in my ministry to the homeless, I was ministering to people that I really did not trust.”
GOD’S SHOELACE
IIn today’s broadcast of the T. Randolph and Friends podcast, T. Randolph talks about, “God’s Shoelace.”
Imagine our lives like a clean, white shoelace. Soft, smooth, fresh and new… much like our lives after we receive God’s redemption in our lives. When God touches our lives with grace that we do not deserve, we are more compelled to share His gracious love with others. But somewhere along the way, we lose sight of His grace, and choose to not love someone else. This is the first knot in the shoelace. Then we exclude others and gossip about others…tying another knot in that no longer fresh lace. We avoid others, we take from others, we stop caring…and tie another knot in that shoelace. We listen to the voice that says, “I’m not good enough for God to love me”…and tie knot upon knot in that shoelace.
Over time “God’s Shoelace”, the gift of abundant life that he gave to us, has become a knotty, dirty, ugly, mess: tangled strands of our own selfishness, our own pride, our own arrogance and conditional love.
Sometimes the knots are tied by an attitude of, ‘I want to be perceived as a good person because I do good deeds for others.” However, love is not a mathematical formula of doing good to others to gain acceptance from God and from people. Listen to how T. Randolph uncovers this mystery, as he discusses the difference between love according to society’s standards and the teachings of Jesus.
© T. Randolph and Friends | Lawrence Media Interactive
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T The hot buzz word in our society today is, TOLERANCE. We need to tolerate differences, tolerate religion,
tolerate sexual orientation, tolerate political views, tolerate a neighbor or coworker. So much of our energy is spent “holding our noses” and “putting up” with others, avoiding those we feel are different. We are taught tolerance in school, on the playground, in sports, in business, in social settings. We have museums of tolerance, movies of tolerance, literature on tolerance, and religions of tolerance. All of which are good and necessary for a society to live at peace, to thrive as a group and to understand our differences.
However, often we stop at the doorstep of tolerance. We feel tolerance is simply enough. We cannot begin to image going BEYOND tolerance.
So much of what people post on social media today are debates about who is the most tolerant group on a particular issue. But isn’t our life supposed to be deeper than that? Are we not asked by a gracious God to push way beyond tolerance into the place of loving and caring for others?
The Hundred Foot Journey – From Tolerance to Love
In a recent Walt Disney Studios movie based on a novel by Richard C. Morais called, The Hundred Foot Journey, we see a story unfold of human transformation. The most polarizing characters move from a place of intolerance, then to indifference, into tolerance, traveling into acceptance and finally and ultimately, to love.
The story is about a young aspiring chef, Hassan Kadam (Manish Dayal), who with his family are displaced from their native India, to settling in a beautiful and quaint village in the south of France. The family decides to purchase an old dilapidated property across the road from a world famous, classical French restaurant, Le Saule Pleureur. Much to the chagrin of it’s proprietor, Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren), the patriarch of the family, Papa (played by actor Om Puri), decides to open an Indian Restaurant on the old gravel road juxtapose to Ms. Mallory’s French cuisine restaurant, 100 feet away. Despite tensions and disagreements, what begins to unfold is a beautiful story of two, second generation chefs, who learn to understand, respect and embrace each others’ differences.
The Hundred Foot Journey is an amazing story about how relationships can often begin with intolerance towards people who look different, who are culturally different, or have different family systems, and end in a place of love and admiration towards others.
If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal. [Commencement Address at American University, June 10 1963]” ― John F. Kennedy
Passing Through Tolerance on the Road to Love
Today on the T. Randolph and Friends broadcast T. Randolph tackles the issue of Tolerance head on. Tolerance is not what the God calls us to do. God takes us 
way beyond what society asks of us, and He invites us to Love our enemies. Pray for those who despitefully use you and hate you. T. Randolph discusses this hot topic in today’s podcast and the the call to, “Love God and Love Others.”
This is difficult to do, because it demands we enter relationship with others who are hurting, who are messy, who are difficult, and who are different.
Listen in on how T. Randolph uncovers this mystery and seeks to balance out what society says, and what the words of Christ say.
Love God. Love Others.
© T. Randolph and Friends | Lawrence Media | From Tolerance to Love
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M Manny Olivas is our special guest on the T.
Randolph and Friends broadcast. This is Part 2 of 2 of our interview with Manny on the subject of Forgiveness.
Manny has an amazing life journey growing up in Salinas, California in a broken family with drug trafficking parents and relatives, using Heroin, Meth and Marijuana. He often had altercations with the law, and was on the verge of being charged with 5 felony counts, which could have put him behind bars for the rest of his life. But every step along the way God was there to miraculously intervene and provide freedom, hope and forgiveness.
Listen in as we hear Manny’s story of his family’s victory, realized through mutual forgiveness and love for one another.
You can reach Manny at: [email protected] or visit Skyline Church website.
Photos from our visit with Manny.
© T. Randolph and Friends | Lawrence Media
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M Manny Olivas is our special guest on the T. Randolphand Friends broadcast. This is Part 1 of 2 of our interview with Manny on the subject of Forgiveness.
Manny has an amazing life journey growing up in Salinas, California in a broken family with drug trafficking parents and relatives, using Heroin, Meth and Marijuana. He often had altercations with the law, and was on the verge of being charged with 5 felony counts, which could have put him behind bars for the rest of his life. But every step along the way God was there to miraculously intervene and provide freedom, hope and forgiveness.
Listen in as we hear Manny’s story of his family’s victory, realized through mutual forgiveness and love for one another.
You can reach Manny at: [email protected]
Photos from our visit with Manny.
© T. Randolph and Friends | Lawrence Media
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Please join us for this very special “live event” of the T. Randolph and Friends broadcast. Recording at the Graf Barn in Southern California, we invited special guests, Michelle Wortner, Laina Graf, Don Dukes and Sam Gallucci to join in on the conversational topic of, “God’s Love vs Man’s Love.”This was an incredible time of enlightened discussion about how it is difficult to love others, ourselves and those around us unconditionally. Yet we can experience and learn to accept this kind of love, given freely from our Creator, even in ups and downs of our journey hear on earth. We hope that this broadcast will touch the lives of those listening, to bring hope, peace, strength and encouragement.
You can reach any of our guests on the broadcast by clicking on their name below.
Photos from our visit with the T. Randolph and Friends “Live Event” with Guests, Michelle Wortner, Laina Graf, Don Dukes, and Sam Gallucci.
© T. Randolph and Friends | Lawrence Media