Partial Love

My son is just over six months old.

And we recently developed a father-son weekly ritual...

About once a week we head to Starbucks together and put out the vibe. We usually sit at the coffee bar right next to the spot where customers retrieve their drinks. I sip my own cup of coffee while my son sits on the counter and smiles at people while they are waiting to receive the beverage they ordered. We make a good sales team. I am convinced that Starbucks should start paying us by the hour.

Today I noticed something really interesting. I noticed that my son, Tighe, smiled at every single customer that got his attention--without fail. It didn't matter how short or tall, fat or skinny, pretty or ugly, wealthy or poor, successful or unsuccessful the customer was. He just gave them the biggest smile he could conjure up. And people loved it. They couldn't help but smile right back.

As I was driving home, I began to feel convicted. I began to think about how partial our love--my love--tends to be. At some point I transitioned from giving away smiles for free to being selective about the love I am willing to give away. We all have. All of us have stopped giving away smiles of non-partial love to every human being we encounter. And I believe this is quite tragic. Instead of allowing the non-partial love of God to flow through us and touch the lives of those around us, we give our love away selectively and sparingly for rather superficial reasons. We now notice things about people that we didn't take into consideration as an infant. We now notice whether a person is short or tall, fat or skinny, pretty or ugly, wealthy or poor, successful or unsuccessful, and so on. Not only do we notice these things now, but we tend to give our love away based upon our observations. We are more inclined to show love to the person that is attractive, outgoing, funny, successful, and all the rest. And this is not a good thing. The flow of love in our lives becomes blockaded by superficial judgments and observations that hinders the mission of God from moving forward in the world -- "This is my command: love each other" (Jn. 15:17). Partial love is antithetical to the kingdom of God and the way of Jesus. Partial love is what drives hatred and racism. It is what produces social outcasts and misfits. It is what puts people on the fringe of society. Partial love leads to oppression.

As kingdom people, we need to reclaim our child-like instinct to give away free smiles of non-partial love. Only as we do that will we truly be aligned with the mission and character of God. God demonstrated his own non-partial love for us, in that while we yet rebellious sinners, he took our sin upon himself and died for the entire world. Jesus Christ hanging on the cross of Calvary is the purest image of non-partial love. And it is that same non-partial, Calvary-like, agape love that is what will move the kingdom of God forward in our own lives and in the world.