Be Moved :: Because of Love

For a long time, I never gave much care to my own health. Consequently, my level of fitness gradually decreased from unimpressive to alarming. Over time, I became severely obese. I needed help. 

I’d heard about a local weight loss program that took overweight people through rigorous personalized training to help them get on track. Hundreds applied each year, but they could take only a handful of people at a time. I was one of the many to apply … and one of the few to be selected.

I didn’t know what to expect, but my first personal exposure to the program had me asking some serious questions. Tina, one of the program founders, called me and enthusiastically told me I was one of the lucky ones. She was really enthusiastic. Too enthusiastic, actually.

I thought Tina was either insincere (nobody could possibly be that happy to help a stranger, right?) or she was crazy. I was afraid I might have wandered into a cult … or something worse. 

It turns out that she was crazy … but in the most beautiful way possible.

With her husband, Rick, they had developed a program from scratch. They recruited a team of certified health and fitness professionals to train the participants. They had secured sponsorships so they could offer their program completely free of charge.

This top-notch team taught me how to exercise responsibly, eat cleanly and practice accountability. It’s a much larger story than I can tell here, but I’ll summarize my experience by saying that I was literally loved to health. They tirelessly and selflessly invested in me, and I gained far more than what I lost. 

When the next year rolled around, Rick and Tina invited me to return to the program as a mentor for the new participants. They would ask alumni to help the new folks because we could empathize with them. The year before I had an amazing mentor, and now I had an opportunity to return the favor. Over the next several years, I have volunteered in many roles, and this program has continued to be a wonderful, rewarding experience.

Do you want to know why I have stayed with this program long after I could have left? After all, I’d learned the lessons, adopted good habits and lost the weight. I was free to move on.

We have already discussed many reasons why we should show mercy to others. To varying degrees, each of these motives are true of me and my involvement with this weight loss program.

I know that I am needed. I believe it is a good and right thing to do. I can empathize with the participants. I am grateful for what I have received from the program. 

But the biggest reason I stick around? Because I love Rick and Tina.

These are two of the most amazing individuals I have ever met. They genuinely love people and have sacrificed much over many years helping others reclaim their lives. I continue to learn much more than fitness from them. They have given me a wealth of tremendous gifts and I can never repay the multitudes of mercy they’ve have shown to me. I would do anything they ask of me, and I would be crushed if I were to disappoint them.

One of the greatest gifts I have received from them is a greater ability to recognize the kindness I’ve received from God. Experiencing their extravagant kindness has helped me to recognize the kindness of others more readily. I can more clearly see the mercy of God in my life because they have so clearly taught me what active mercy looks like.

I volunteer in this program because of love … but it’s not my love for the participants that motivates me. At least, not at first. When they come into the program, they are complete strangers. I don’t know them, and I don’t love them either. Yet. Eventually, we become family, but it takes time for those relationships to flourish.

I want to help them because I love Rick and Tina. I can love them because Rick and Tina first loved me.

Hopefully, you can see how my relationship with Rick and Tina serves as a small-scale model of the relationship we should have with God.

They heavily invested in me, and I love them for it. Because they have set such a powerful example for me, I want to be like them … and there is no way I can be like them if I do not love others.

For us to love the way God loves, we must also care the way He cares.

Why should we practice mercy?

Because He loves us. Because we love Him.

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Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God … This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another … 

We love because He first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And He has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

~ 1 John 4:7-11, 19-21

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“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. 

And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

~ Matthew 22:36-40

Open Hands, pages 79-82