Robo Calls!

     If I get one more "robo" call before this election, I think I'm gonna throw up!  Seriously, these things just seem to proliferate like flies at a family reunion picnic--every year it gets worse and worse.  Do people seriously listen to all these pre-recorded calls?  I'll never forget the first time I got one of those calls a few years back and, boy, was I impressed!  Wow, I thought, that is the actual President's voice on my answering machine!... well, and on a few hundred other million answering machines as well.  But that was roughly 10,000 robo calls ago--I am no longer terribly impressed by the recorded voices of movie stars or political leaders or bill collectors on my phone.  Been there, done that.  As my wonderful Aunt Janie used to say when some poor, unknowing solicitor used to call her, "I'm not interested in that at all!"  Click.
     But I had to ask myself, is that how I'm demonstrating love first to my Savior and then to my family and friends and those God has so graciously placed in my life?  Out of sheer busyness and preoccupation, do I sometimes (or often) "robo call" my time, my attention, my affection, my concern, my gratitude?  Am I really present when I am with them, or are the lights on but nobody's home--cooking dinner, answering emails, contemplating my to-do list, worrying about one of my children, fretting over some matter and not really seeing or listening or loving the very ones with whom I most need and desire to pursue in meaningful, deep relationship.  It's so easy to be shallow and quick and inattentive to those dearest to us in our relentless quest to get more things done and completed--even though, ironically,  all those chores and accomplishments are most often for the very people we love and are somehow missing in our busyness and rush!  We robo call those we most cherish while squandering our time and attention on all the other meaningless flotsam of life.
     Or when we spend time with the Lord: how often do we "robo call" our Savior?  Do we read the life-altering, life-sustaining supernatural Word of God as though we are doing our required summer reading for college?  Just get it done and check it off our list... and tragically miss the Lord of the universe waiting in it's precious pages to speak to us, convict us, encourage us, change us, equip us?  O forgive us, Father! We forfeit blessing upon blessing in our haste to get it done and move on to something more urgent and infinitely less important.
     And, boy, how much we miss in our personal relationships when we do this!  Truly, how often have you been swayed by a robo call?  Me?  Never!  But, let me talk to my husband, or a dear friend, or one of my siblings, or a beloved child, and I am always impacted and inevitably caused to ponder and understand dilemmas or concerns in a new way.  Love always causes us to be changed and challenged and comforted... but also, praise God, less conceited and self-concerned.  But we have to be fully present and actively seeking to listen and empathize and encourage that other person.  We can't put it on auto-pilot while we selfishly seek our own way and our own agenda.
     I have been so convicted in reading through the Gospel of John--what an example from start to finish of the love of Christ--the sacrificial, perfect, sanctifying, unselfish love of the Savior.   John outlived all the other disciples.  And in Jerome's Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, we are told: "When he [Apostle John] tarried at Ephesus to extreme old age, and could only with difficulty be carried to the church in the arms of his disciples, and was unable to give utterance to many words, he used to say no more at their several meetings, than this, 'Little children, love one another.'  At length, the disciples and fathers who were there, wearied with always hearing the same words, said, 'Master, why dost thou always say this?'  'It is the Lord's command,' was his worthy reply, 'and if this alone be done, it is enough.'"
     Amen!  Read through the Gospel of John, and you will see an unrelentingly loving Savior--a Lord who loves to the uttermost and even to laying aside all the infinite glory and respect and honor due Him and gives His life for His own created beings (sinful and ungrateful though they be).  And here is what He commands us: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:34-35)
     If you were taken to court for being a disciple of Christ, based upon this evidence of the way you love others, would there by enough evidence to convict?   Do others know I am His by the way I love?  Or do I look more like some frenzied, shallow follower who loves when it's convenient or comfortable?   O Lord, You who loved so infinitely much, help me to follow closely in Your footsteps and to love--to truly love sacrificially and fully with the love of Christ.  I surely cannot do it, selfish girl that I am, but You can do it through me.  
     No more robo calls--but only the authentic call of loving fully and sacrificially and joyfully!  Loving God and loving others.  After all, "It is the Lord's command, and if this alone be done, it is enough."  Help us to love, Lord.  To God, the author and source of all love, be the glory.