Runway Walk - Pt 5

(Part 5 of 7)

What’s Love Got to Do With It?

Physical coordination has never been my strong suit.  That truth was brought to mind, once again, several years ago in a very public way.  As I completed an opportunity to play the organ as a substitute for our very gifted and talented organist, I slipped my legs off the organ bench, intending to slip down the stairs from the side of the platform and into a seat on the side of the worship center.  As the daughter of the pastor in a small rural church, I had been blessed to take the six free lessons when the church bought a small organ.  Therefore, I, by default, become the church organist.  Though I had several years of piano lessons, I never overestimated my just-adequate abilities, so I was very thankful to have played through the service with no glaring mistakes.  However, as I swung my legs to the side to step down, I realized, too late to save myself, that they had moved the entire organ closer to the stairwell in order to make more room on the platform.  As a result, I lost my footing and rolled down about nine steps in front of God and about two thousand worshippers.  As I was rolling, my whole life passed before my eyes, as I begged God to open the church floor and swallow me up, or to rapture me out, or just to translate me to heaven, as He did Enoch and Elijah.  Alas, He did none of those things, and I had to pull myself up, as others sprang to help, dust myself off, and try to regain some minor sense of dignity as I slipped into an end seat of a pew.  As I sat there, trying to blend into the pew, I thought to myself that it was so very good that I had never won the Miss America title.  I just know I would have brought shame upon the entire pageant as I tumbled off that runway in front of a national television audience.   

Almost every girl has a dream, at least for a short while until reality sets in, of being Miss America or a famous, beautiful model and walking the runway.  Though few have that opportunity in life, as a believer in Jesus Christ, every single one of us is called to walk the runway of life, as a model of the character of Jesus Christ, and to show off the wonderful designs and artistry of our Master Designer – the Creator and Designer of the universe.  The older one gets, the more blessed we are to realize the gifts we have both in a physical walk and a spiritual walk.  When, as was the case in my own life due to a fall and a broken leg, we are unable to walk at all, we recognize the value of a life walk far exceeds the value of a fashion walkway. 

Unlike the humbling fall from the church platform or a trip on a fashion runway, our spiritual walk is not all about us - our gifts, our talents, or our beauty.  Instead, it is about walking the runway of life in such a way as to bring everyone’s attention to Jesus Christ, whose call on our life is to walk worthy as His child.  We have already seen that it is to be a walk that demonstrates our passion for Him and emulates His humility, His meekness, His patience, and His ability to forgive others.  It is also, according to Ephesians 5:2, to be a walk which demonstrates our great love for Jesus by loving others. 

Love is probably the most inappropriately used word in the human language.  “I love spaghetti,” “I love that color on you,” or “I love that television program,” are all phrases common to our everyday speech.  Even biblically, there are several different types of love which are discussed.  Song of Solomon illustrates eros, or a physical, passionate, or sensual love.  Philia, as is found in the name of Philadelphia as well as in Hebrews 13:1, talks about loving your brother or your family members.  Yet another Greek root for love is found in Titus 2:4, storge, and means the natural affection and commitment a parent should feel toward a child or a husband toward a wife.  Yet, in Ephesians 5:2, our runway walk of life is to be defined by its demonstration of agape love. 

Agape love is not an emotion or a feeling.  It is a verb, active, definitive, and descriptive of a lifestyle of living based on what is best for another regardless of the cost to oneself.  It can be best described by II Corinthians 12:15 – Therefore, I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved.  It is a decision moment by moment, day by day, to live in such a way that relationships are not based on what one can get out of the relationship but, instead, on what one can give in the relationship.  Obviously, I am not advocating abusive relationships; what I am advocating is Christ-honoring relationships – unconditional love that demonstrates a calculated decision to invest energy, righteousness, kindness, and gentleness into a relationship without expectation of return.  It is a lifestyle that declares I will do what is best for you regardless of the cost to me.  It is without bitterness or resentment because it is freely given.  Christ said that no one could take His life because He willingly laid it down.

In 1968, the USS Pueblo and all of her crew were taken hostage by the North Korean military.  Thirteen of the surviving crew were drug into a conference room on the ship and seated around a table, surrounded by armed guards.  Without a word, a door opened and a North Korean soldier entered the room and began to beat the young crewman nearest to the door.  None of the other sailors were allowed to intervene.  Eventually, the beating stopped.  Two of the Americans were commanded to drag the young sailor back to where the sailors were being held.  The next day, the same group of thirteen sailors was again marched in order to the conference room.  Again, the door opened and the same young man as the day before was beaten unmercifully.  The same process followed the third day; however, on the fourth day, as the men were dragged into the conference room, one young sailor pushed the bruised and beaten sailor down into his chair.  That brave young man sat in the seat which he knew had been chosen to be the whipping chair.  The next day, yet a different sailor took that seat, and on, and on, until, eventually, the North Koreans realized that they could not defeat that group of young men who were willing to do what was best for one another, regardless of the personal cost to themselves. 

What kind of love does your daily walk exemplify?  There is little challenge to love those who love us, but Jesus Christ commanded His children not only to love one another, but, in Luke 6:27, to also love our enemies.  Praise His Name that He did not command us to like them, to have warm fuzzies for them, but, instead, to live in such a way as to demonstrate that we will choose to do that which is best for them regardless of the cost to us.  As Max Lucado said, the cross of Calvary resonates with Christ’s declaration that He would rather die for us that to live eternity without us. 

Dr. Jack Hyles often told the story of a young mother in Georgia many years ago.  She had taken her young baby with her to visit a neighbor near their rural home and had stayed a little longer than she had intended.  It was nearly dark, and she was taking a shortcut through the field near their adjoining fields.  As she hurried, she slipped into an old well shaft, falling many feet into the bottom of the shaft.  She began to frantically call for help, as she slipped deeper into the shaft.  As her anxious husband and neighbors searched for her, someone heard the cries of the baby in the distant darkness. They rushed to the location where they found the young mother who had drowned in the well, but the baby was wedged above her head and was fine, apart from scratches and bruises.  As the grieving husband and father met with the authorities at the funeral home, he was asked by the director what to do about his wife’s arms.  Confused, he asked what the director meant.  The funeral director replied that his wife had held the baby above her head for so long that her arms were locked in that position.  She had done what was best for that baby regardless that the cost was her own life.  She was buried with her arms raised above her head.

What kind of love does your runway walk exhibit?  Could anyone ever say about you that you loved at any cost and that your life was spent lifting others to the Lord Jesus, to salvation, and to eternal life?

- Next Week, part 6, "Men Love Darkness... Except on the Way to the Outhouse" -

© 2010 Gerry Sisk

(06/02/10)