I purchased a massive zucchini for a dollar recently.
Let me ask you something. If I invited you into my home, and we sat down for tea and a chat, and then I excused myself to the kitchen and returned with a platter of goodies in my hands to share with you, which “goody” would make you feel more loved: fresh zucchini slices arranged in a pretty spiral, or sliced zucchini bread still warm from the oven and laden with half-melted chocolate chips?
On the surface, it seems obvious. “You baked this for me? How wonderful! Yum!”
But another person might find it cruel of me to put such a temptation in front of them.
“You know I’m diabetic. This contains as much sugar as zucchini—not even counting the sugar in the chocolate chips.”
“You know I can’t eat gluten.”
“I’m allergic to chocolate.”
“You know I’m trying to lose weight. How much oil is in this?”
“Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
And so on.
In this light, I have not performed a loving deed at all. Have I?
I ask this because it’s what I pondered while I used only a third of that zucchini to create four loaves of zucchini bread. Adding sugar, flour, oil, chocolate chips and more turned something cheap and nutritious into something expensive and unhealthy. Why do we do this to ourselves and to each other?
If I truly loved you, wouldn’t I care enough about your health to want you eating something packed with nutrition but easy on calories? Then again, if I truly loved you, wouldn’t I want to offer the joy, comfort, and surge of endorphins that come with home-baked treats?
Who’s to say what is loving? What one person might call tough love, another sees as controlling and manipulative. Do my actions enable another to continue in unhealthy behaviors or do they demonstrate patient support? Am I practicing healthy boundaries or exclusion? What one sees as standing up for their own human rights, another sees as self-centered. Yet God calls us to love, first and foremost.
While it may not always be crystal clear what genuine love looks like, I know what it doesn’t look like. Love doesn’t look like fear or the spreading of fear. Name-calling. Gossip. Quarreling. Worry. Hatred. Resentment. Coercion. Arrogance. Distrust. Pretending to know stuff I don’t.
I think we’ve all seen a whole lot of the above lately, haven’t we? Sometimes the best prayer we can pray is, “God, make me teachable. Give me eyes to see. Ears to hear. Wisdom. Patience. Humility.”
Philippians 4 admonishes us to think about what is true, honest, just, pure, virtuous, lovely, and praiseworthy. Whatever’s troubling you today, God has already figured out. One day, in his perfect timing (how we wish we knew when!), you’ll look back and say, “see what my good and faithful God did there?” And just maybe, you’ll see where you grew in strength, compassion, goodness, and faithfulness because you chose love.
Now, what do I do with the rest of this zucchini?
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