⁷ Dear friends, let us practice loving each other, for love comes from God and those who are loving and kind show that they are the children of God, and that they are getting to know him better. ⁸ But if a person isn’t loving and kind, it shows that he doesn’t know God—for God is love.
⁹ God showed how much he loved us by sending his only Son into this wicked world to bring to us eternal life through his death. ¹⁰ In this act we see what real love is: it is not our love for God but his love for us when he sent his Son to satisfy God’s anger against our sins.
¹¹ Dear friends, since God loved us as much as that, we surely ought to love each other too. ¹² For though we have never yet seen God, when we love each other God lives in us, and his love within us grows ever stronger. ¹³ And he has put his own Holy Spirit into our hearts as a proof to us that we are living with him and he with us. ¹⁴ And furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now tell all the world that God sent his Son to be their Savior. ¹⁵ Anyone who believes and says that Jesus is the Son of God has God living in him, and he is living with God. (1 John 4:7-15, NLT)

I lay in the dark. The only sound is the quite in-and-out of my husband’s breath. And my thoughts are whirling in circles trying to puzzle out the right way for me to respond to circumstances. And hear this conversation in my soul:

“Love each other. “

“But, God, what about the sin?”

“John 3:16.”

“But, You tell us in The Bible that the way they are acting is wrong.”

“Since God loves us as much as that, we surely ought to love each other, too.”

“But, their lifestyle. I don’t want to appear to support or condone it.”

“To love is not the same as to condone. I hate sin. I love you.”

“I get the concept, but I don’t know what that looks like. What if…?

“Listen for my voice. I’ll be your guide.”

“It sounds so simple, but it gets complicated in the details.

“If a person isn’t loving and kind, it shows that she doesn’t know God—for God is love.”

So, even if I have to say something like, “I’m sorry, I can’t help you with that,” my attitude is to shine with your love, not with the crowd’s condemnation.

By this time, I am expecting a sigh of impatience, but Jesus just smiles and draws designs in the sand.