Love one another as I have loved you...

Elder Dallin H. Oaks gave a talk last October in General Conference about loving other's as Christ loved his flock.  He said, during the talk that the reason why this is so hard for us to do, is because members of His church and believers in His Gospel have to live with those who don't share those same convictions.  This is true, but, I believe that it's not conclusive to say, "this is why."  Also, I am not saying, that elder Oaks was saying it was conclusive or the only way that it "is why" (he was a judge and a Supreme Court justice, after all!  I don't pretend to have the logical skills or writing skills or thinking skills that he has and am therefore not in any way challenging anything that he wrote--I am simply making an off-shoot comment--that is all!).

Case in point: I don't even love my family as Christ loved His flock or His disciples!  Sure, I try to love everyone as Christ loved, but I fall short.  Christ never fell short.  Add to that "falling short" my wife's falling short, and you've got two imperfect people imperfectly loving each other and making imperfect decisions every single day.  The result is: we are incapable of loving as He did or does, without His Grace (and that should but doesn't come every second of every day, but it comes 'grace for grace' 'here a little and there a little.'  But we try our hardest nonetheless...

It's easier for me to love complete strangers or friends or colleagues more perfectly than it is to perfectly love those those closest to me...  Don't misunderstand me!  I am absolutely and totally in love with my wife.  We just have all day long to have interactions where the wrong things that I've learned can come out.  All day long she has interactions with me where wrong things that she's learned can come out.  Yet, there is a wrongness to me saying that I can love a stranger better than those closest to me--I suppose that even with less of a chance of being irritated or offended, there is likewise no chance of me loving a stranger the same way I might love my child or my wife or even my parents--that's impossible!

Strangers simply don't know me well enough and aren't aware of and familiar with my defects and past wrongs.  Therefore, I said that it's easier.  I am wrong, though, and must explain.

With each and every wrong thing that's done,  the chances of me or her responding in the way that Jesus Christ would have responded is less and less (given our fallen natures/sins of our fathers/misunderstandings).

The only safety or security in this wrongness is that at any time, every time, every one of us can respond in the way that our Savior would have responded.  That is the only way to save us from falling down a dark and dreary tunnel of wrong-doings.  We don't have to respond the way our natural man or natural woman tells us to--we can respond meekly and humbly and in a Christlike manner!

That's our only saving-grace.

JPS