As we wrap up the first six months of the Transformational Discipleship journey – Spiritual Foundations: Personal Discipleship – we shared with you that the goal would be that the Transformational Leaders would be transformed to love God more deeply and to love others as they love themselves.
One of them, an expert in the law, tested Jesus with this question: “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)
This is the foundation for the rest of the leadership development program. It is the foundation that we will shape the rest of our time together. It is the foundation that will be given intentional effort as we move forward.
So as you grow more deeply in loving, consider these words from Henri Nouwen:
Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving. When the child leaves home, when the husband or wife leaves for a long period of time or for good, when the beloved friend departs to another country or dies … the pain of the leaving can tear us apart.
Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.