Metaphors

"The problem with Christian culture is we think of love as a commodity. We use it like money. ... I could see it so clearly, and I could feel it in the pages of my life. This was the thing that had smelled so rotten all these years. I used love like money. The church used love like money. With love, we withheld affirmation from the people who did not agree with us, but we lavishly financed the ones who did. ...

I was making a mess of everything. And I was disobeying God. I became convicted about these things. ... It was clear that I was to love everybody, be delighted at everybody's existence, and I had falled miles short of God's aim. The power of Christian spirituality has always rested in repentance, so that's what I did. I repented. I told God I was sorry. I replaced the economic metaphor, in my mind, with something different, a free gift metaphor or a magnet metaphor. That is, instead of withholding love to change somebody, I poured it on, lavishly. I knew this was the way God loved me. God had never withheld love to teach me a lesson.

Here is something very simple about relationships that Spencer helped me discover: Nobody will listen to you unless they sense that you like them."

Excerpt from Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller