Selfless Love

I am coming to you for the third time, and I will not be a burden to you. I don’t want what you have —I want you. After all, children don’t provide for their parents. Rather, parents provide for their children. I will gladly spend myself and all I have for you, even though it seems that the more I love you, the less you love me. 2 Corinthians 12:14-15

PAUL TOLD THE CORINTHIANS that he considered himself their spiritual parent. He didn’t want them spending their money to take care of him as he worked with them. More than that, Paul said he would gladly spend himself and all he had for the Corinthian Christians to grow to be all that God intended. Paul was willing to be used up to see his children in the faith grow up.

Just as Paul refused to use his “children” to make himself rich, neither do we want to use our children to make ourselves look good in the eyes of others. And though we likely don’t see ourselves as wanting to use our children in this way, that self-perception is challenged by our reaction when we feel our children are making us look bad. Our anger or embarrassment reveals the truth.

Just as Paul carried a burden he chose not to place on his “children,” so do we as parents carry the weight of many burdens that we choose not to place on our kids. And just as Paul was writing this letter to the disrespectful Corinthians for the very purpose of building up those who had torn him down, so we, as parents, keep on looking for ways to build up our children, even when they have rolled their eyes at our ideas and haven’t treated us with the respect we deserve.

Of course, Paul could treat the Corinthians this way because this is how he had been treated by Christ. We can almost hear Christ saying to us, his children, “I will gladly spend myself and all I have for you, even though it seems that the more I love you, the less you love me.”

Christ spent himself for us long before we loved him. It is his Spirit that enables us to spend ourselves in love for our children, even when they are not being loving to us in return.

Lord, sometimes we just get tired of spending ourselves for our children —especially when we seem to receive little love and respect in return. We need your Spirit of serving and giving and spending ourselves.