The song “Ordinary Love” by U2 sparked a notion in me that substantiates a belief that I’ve had for a long time.  Here is the link:

These particular words strike a chord:

“We cannot fall any further if we can’t feel ordinary love, and we cannot reach any higher if we cannot deal with ordinary love”

It seems all too often, that many Christians bypass mastering the skills of ordinary love to claim expertise in the extraordinary love of God… in reality, if we can’t master the basics, if we bypass the difficult process of learning to love as Jesus taught us, the simple everyday expression of patience, kindness, slowness to anger and judgement, walking in another’s shoes etc., we can NEVER comprehend the extraordinary love of God, and love as God does.  In a sense, it is like bypassing all that comes before any high achievement and claiming entitlement to the prize anyway.

Let me be clear, mastering ordinary love is different from sharing in the grace bestowed on us by Christ’s great sacrifice.  That gift isn’t earned, it  is free to all, but mastering love only comes with often painstaking practice and experience.  Grace is the conduit to an endless source, which only is as powerful as our ability to master ordinary love and infuse it into the world.  That is what Jesus meant when he said: “they will know you are my disciples by how you love one another.”  It doesn’t have to be complicated…it’s all laid out in the Gospels.  It is putting it to work every single day, as strenuously as we would an exercise program, with no shortcuts, that creates a Master.