Love God, Love People

I love music, if I’m ever on a walk or sat in the office by myself or doing DIY or tidying the house – I have music on. I love the way it can take you on a journey, transport you to a place you never expected, and allow you to feel things you never thought possible

What about you? Who or what type of music do you enjoy?

One artist I’ve been listening to a lot recently is someone called Alecia Beth Moore, AKA, P!nk. She has this song called “What about us…”, however it’s the particular intro into the song that really got me thinking about what it means to love

The intro and song if you would like to listen is in the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BqTKQht-0g

You see, I think “Loving” is sometimes something the church doesn’t do very well, and there are more loving people who associate to no faith at all. Church is one of the few places where we have a “welcoming committee” and yet people can get offended when we sit in “their” chair. It’s one of the places where we talk so much about love, and yet people can feel unwelcomed. Where we can spend time, money, and energy in putting on the best refreshments, and we simply only talk to our friends rather than noticing the stranger walk out the door.

In my church on Sunday, we listened to the preacher give us a talk on what a “healthy church” according to the book of Acts looks like. It looks like: support, community, meals, walks, sharing, conversation; it looks like spending time with each other.

In the song mentioned above by P!nk, she talks so much truth about how we as Christian’s can learn to love those who are hurting. She isn’t a Christian, and yet I think she gets it. The below are the words from the intro to the song:

Cash cash remix intro/What About Us – P!nk

I’ve always felt very misunderstood. When everybody’s walking in a single-file line, I have to walk diagonal… I chose all the pain of my childhood… then I thought that if I talked about real stuff I could maybe one day be a songwriter, to feel those kinds of emotions and not be afraid of pain. It’s the connection that motivates me; I need to know that my pain is helping your pain. A long time ago I decided that no matter where I went or what I did with my life, I was always gonna be very true to myself. I have always identified with people that struggle. Just being able to help people- that is the stuff that keeps me going. We all wanna be loved, we all wanna be protected; we’re all pink on the inside. We all bleed red, we all cry clear tears, we all put one foot in front of the other now. We wanna have faith in our world.

I’m grateful if I’ve kept one girl from feeling different or ugly, or unempowered. You have to fight for rights, respect, and love… kindness and compassion, and you have to be willing to die for it.

With all the strife and economic woes in the world, religious intolerance, global warming… it boggles my mind that we’re spending, time, energy, and money trying to ban love. I don’t want there to be gay marriage; I just want there to be happy marriage and lasting marriage.

I think the human experience shouldn’t be covered up. I think it should be live out loud. I see in other people the truth that’s happening, and I want them to feel comfortable being that. “It felt transcendent… it felt like taking us into the music.” The music alone is gonna keep me going. I’ve owned and embraced my integrity, and I feel like I still have a lot of fight left in me.

We’ve been failed by our government. There’s a lot of people that feel forgotten and invisible and made to feel less-than, unwanted and unloved, and it hurts my heart; it makes me very angry. I will do everything I can to open people’s hearts, ears, minds… cause I’m not going anywhere. I’ve seen change, and I have to believe that change is possible because if I stop believing that, then it’s just a little too much for me… so I have a pen, and I write… I write about that.

Whilst there is so much to chew through in these words (good and bad, you can plainly see the acceptance of others that P!nk has – and that, my friends, is a HUGELY Godly character.

If Jesus’ mission could be paraphrased into one sentence, it would be this…Love God, love people. And so, as we come into this week, that whole heartedly needs to be our primary focus. Out of that, EVERYTHING ELSE is secondary, and sometimes we need to return to the source.

For our prayers this week, they are very simple. That:

  • You would know God and love people each day.
  • Children in Swindon know God and love people each day.
  • Young people in Swindon would know God and love people each day.
  • Those in tragedy would know God and love people each day.
  • Those who are victimised would know God and love people each day.
  • Those in poverty on our streets in Swindon would know God and love people each day.
  • Our churches in Swindon would know God and love people each day.

And finally, we would start viewing the world around us as people to be loved, not objects to be judged.

If we can do this, I think this is what it means to see God’s Kingdom here on earth.

Written by Dave Clarke, Director of Swindon Youth for Christ.