What is the language of love? This question formed in my mind. I began to consider what learning a language entails. It takes effort, commitment and application. To sound fluent you need to work on pronouceation and possibly visit the country and live there for a while. To start with you may sound different or silly but by listening to correction and trying again then progress is made.

Living in the UK I have often heard the comment I do not need to learn another language as when I go abroad people speak English. We can so easily stick with the familiar and easiest option or hold a superior attitude. And yet even within different nations there are people who speak different languages and come from a variety of cultures and faiths.

Jesus when meeting a Samaritan woman in the bible had a conversation with her. So the language of love starts in relationship listening, learning and sharing. Being humble. Valuing and caring for everyone whatever their belief, background, gender or colour. There is no fear in love. Love is not about agreeing with everything and saying nothing. Jesus was happy to ask questions and challenge.

Love is not about knowingly letting someone repeatedly hurt you. I guess there may be times when we get it wrong just like when learning a new language. People get it wrong. I guess it is about learning and changing our behaviours. Sometimes this appears impossible and God is there with us in our struggles as our advocate and counsel. He is never the accuser. Sometimes Christians do not speak the language of love and this is sad and hurtful but God promises he is there for all that call on him. The bible says that people will know Christians by the way we love each other.

We cannot be accountable for other peoples words and actions but we can consider the words we speak and our hearts. We all fall short but Jesus had a language of love that broke convention and embraced the questioning, the outcast, the worker, women, the entrepreneur, lepers, the tormented, the sick and the religious. People he met as he moved from place to place and people who sought him out.

As we live and move we will hear all sorts of language. In the Second World War there was a Ministry of Information in the UK which regularly checked the morale of the people. It knew that this was important to help win the war. It is so easy to get depressed and cynical when we hear media reports or experience things but the language we then choose to use can either help things improve or make things worse. We can spread words that help or words that harm.

I feel challenged to consider carefully the words I say and to learn more about others for this is the language of love. People can speak many words but love is the thing that ultimately prevails. I have known words from others that have been like a healing balm and words that have been a cruel blow. The words of Jesus both in the bible and in my heart have always been life giving, healing and given me peace, hope, wisdom and comfort. The words of Jesus have helped me live differently, love others and receive and give forgiveness.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered! it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1Corinthians 13:4-7 NIV)

I want to learn more about love. To practice it in words and action with those I meet… Lord hear my prayer… Forgive me for the times I have spoken in haste from a place of judgement. May my words heal not harm. Amen

My dad loves gardening. Over the years he has spent time sowing, growing and harvesting. I have enjoyed the fruit of his labours. Sometimes I have been at a garden centre and seen plants that are wilting or past their best reduced for quick sale. I have never had the confidence to take them home but maybe I should? Sometimes you wonder whether it is possible for them to recover. And yet there are people who are “green fingered”. They just care for these plants and they are able to survive and thrive. In my house the only plants that seem to flourish are cactus! And yet I dream that one day I will be “green fingered”.

In the bible it says sow the word in your heart so you will not sin. Store up while you can. When you sow something it is hidden. It takes time for germination and for growth before a harvest. Many times the counsel of the bible has helped me through difficult seasons. Yesterday I was praying and it struck me that it is important not to delight in evil but to delight in the Lord. It is easy to get fascinated with and drawn into stuff that causes harm rather than good. To have a fascination with darkness not light. To germinate a seed you need the right atmosphere. A few years ago I was thinking on this and I just had this understanding that prayer changes the atmosphere that brings the growth. As we pray our hearts change and so do our responses. As we grow in understanding about the love of God and how he forgives us we are able to forgive others. As we grow in understanding how God values us our confidence and assurance in who we are in Him grows and this helps us in our daily lives. And then comes the harvest. The fruit of care of others. Of sacrificial love. Of wisdom in the face of difficulty. Of good and right relationships. Of people being cared for and for them to be able to have dignity and opportunity to give too in spite of their challenges touching in turn other people’s lives. Of unity not uniformity. Of creativity and energy. Of loving our enemy. Of going through persecution in whatever form it may come. Of peace in frailty. Of challenging injustice. Of lives encountering the love of Jesus.

I was never good at sewing at school. I was the one who never every made an item of clothing and always struggled to thread the sewing machine. And yet years later I found myself doing a textile art foundation. I smile to think on this. And in my house is a wall hanging I made using a variety of techniques both by hand and by machine! God did more than I could have ever asked or imagined and in the place of failure he worked his resurrection life.

We may not all have green fingers or even a garden to grow things but Jesus takes the areas of our lives that have died or withered as well as the bits that thrive to make something beautiful. The question is will we not only give him the things we are good at but also the things that are not our best or for which we are ashamed of so that we may encounter his grace, life and forgiveness growing in the knowledge of his love?

Recently I had the joy of going along to some community days which had been organised by local churches where I live over the course of a week. At one of these days I met someone who shared they carried shame for something they had done and who asked for prayer. As we prayed one word came strongly into my mind. This was the word “forgiven”. Total, absolute forgiveness. Paid in full. And I spoke this word gently over and over, along with some words from the bible that came into my mind. “He was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). “There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus”(Romans 8:1). As I spoke the word “forgiven” in love, along with these words from the bible, God did a work with the person I was praying with, and afterwards they said they felt so much lighter and their face was radiant.

The load of guilt and shame is a heavy load and Jesus says “come to me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). When Jesus encountered the woman who was caught in adultery he said to her “go and sin no more” (John 8:11). He did not say remember your past and be condemned. And he said to her accusers “he who is without sin .. cast a stone..” (John 8:7) and one by one they dropped their stones. We all fall short. The message of forgiveness is life transforming, healing and brings freedom. As we come to know how much Jesus loves us and what he did for us on the cross we can encounter this forgiveness.

Time and time again over my years as a Christian I have heard of lives turned around by the love of Christ. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. I know in my own life God has worked as I have said sorry and changed my ways. It is when we know how Jesus has forgiven us that we then find it easier to forgive others. As we take the plank out of our own eye and deal with what is in our back yard there is a shifting and God works to help us do what we thought was impossible. Forgiveness is never condemnation. Condemnation is not of God. God is kind and wants all to come to him and encounter his forgiveness and love.

A few weeks ago I went to a prayer breakfast in a city not far from where I live. As I walked there I passed a church that was not my tradition but reminded me of a dearly loved grandfather who had been committed to that denomination. I noted there was a service of silence later that day and I just felt I should go if I had the opportunity. The prayer breakfast was on a subject close to my heart and I was challenged by all that was shared and it was good to pray with others. I then had a coffee with two delegates that I had never met before and was inspired by the stories of a living God at work in their lives.

I then went to the service of silence and during this time I was challenged to do nothing out of vain ambition but to make it my ambition to seek God and what he would ask of me. I was deeply challenged. It was like having open heart surgery and exposed so many of my motives and agendas. And yet it was a relief to be found out. Woe is me for I am undone for I am a man of unclean lips…. I looked later at Philippians 2:3 says “do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interest of others”.

I am trying to ask myself the question what is my motivation? At times it is like a spotlight that reveals bits that are not so beautiful and yet as I give these bits to God and ask him to give me a servant heart and consider others this helps me discern his will and what to do. We can chase so many things and they can become meaningless a chasing after the wind. It is not about achieving but surrendering all we are into his service that others can be touched by his love through whatever we do whether at work, at home or in the community.