Courage in Haarlem

“Whatever we do, it is because Christ’s love controls us.”  2 Corinthians 5:14

This statement is enough to turn many people off to Christianity.  We rarely get much beyond our five year old selves shouting, “You’re not the boss of me!” Any suggestion of God controlling us brings visions of cults and brainwashing that cause us to run the other way.

I’m not sure whether something is lost in translation, or if our guard goes up and so we never look any deeper into what our own language might mean.  Christ’s love controls us. Other translations say “The love of Christ controls us”.  This isn’t talking about the kind of control where Jesus has a remote and we’re robots, unable to regulate our actions.  It’s also not that Jesus takes over our minds and we’re no longer able to think for ourselves.

If I say “The love of hamburgers controls me,” you know I don’t mean that hamburgers love me and control my actions.  No.  You understand that I mean my love of hamburgers controls me.  My tenderhearted affection, my passionate devotion for hamburgers determines what I do.  The choices I make.  The lengths I am willing to go to and the sacrifices I am willing to make.

So what we’re talking about here is really our love for Christ influencing, determining, controlling what we do.  Making a difference in the life that we live.  It’s not just that Christ loves us, that He is passionately devoted to us, but that we also love Him. That our love for Him causes us to want to please Him, to bless Him, to not hurt His heart or add to His wounds.

Sometimes this love for Christ makes our choices a no-brainer.  If we know something would hurt the heart of our Beloved, we don’t do it.  If we know a way to bless the heart of our Beloved, we do it whenever we are able.  This isn’t really that hard for us to understand if we have loved someone – a spouse, a child, a parent.  We see something we know they would love, and we want to share it with them.  We know they hate fish, so we don’t plan their birthday dinner at a sushi restaurant.

At other times our love for Christ asks more than just adjustments in our menu planning. Sometimes it asks us to take a hard path.  Sometimes it leads us to a difficult place, a place that requires courage.

I recently visited the home of Corrie ten Boom in Haarlem, Netherlands, who was a watchmaker before WWII.  Then one day her country was taken over by the Nazis and Corrie’s love for Christ sent her on an unexpected path, a path that eventually led her into the hell of the concentration camps.  When Corrie started helping with the resistance, she didn’t know the kind of courage that would be asked of her.  All she knew was the love of Christ.  It set her course.

At some point we all come to a place that asks us if we really believe what we say we believe.  Does it make a difference when the rubber meets the road?  When life has tripped you up, and beaten you up, and is screaming in your face while you lie in the ashes, what do you do?  Will you have the courage to live the way you say you believe? We call this the courage of conviction.  But it’s really the courage of love.  Love that controls us.

“Adventure and anguish, horror and heaven were just around the corner, and we did not know.  If I had known, would I have gone ahead?  Could I have done the things I did?” – Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place

Sometimes love sends me on a path I don’t want to go down.  Sometimes it asks things of me I don’t want to give up.  Sometimes it means I have to do things I don’t want to do.  Not because my Beloved is forcing me.  Because MY love for my Beloved determines my actions.

Courage goes on, regardless of our fear, regardless of the cost.  We really only need courage when the path requires strength in the face of fear.  What could be stronger than love?  What can cause us to continue on a difficult path, an impossible path, other than love?

I wonder if, when we come to the end of our life’s journey and can view it with Heaven’s-height perspective, we will find that all the seemingly random and senseless twists and turns were only tracing the path of the Cross.

“The greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends.”   John 15:!3