Learning to Love Like Jesus: Paul Miller

Same Luke 7, where Jesus meets the widow of name. Jesus looks at her, feels compassion, raises the dead son. And Jesus takes the son and walks him over to his mom. The miracle is not about Jesus, it's about her. Like she's the center of it. He's valuing her as a person.

And it's sort of the picture of his whole life. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson.

You can find us at familylifetoday.com or on the Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. I've never stopped being fascinated by Jesus. Every time I read any account in the Gospels of his life, I am still marveling at who he is. I'm mesmerized by him.

It never stops. What's beautiful is he says, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. I and the Father are one. So you're not just looking at a human man, Jesus. You are getting a glimpse of the heart of our Creator. And don't you think, Dave, the more we know him, the more we're transformed by him?

Oh, yeah, totally. So, I mean, you've got to spend hours, hours a day and week looking at Jesus. And so we've got Paul Miller in the studio with us, whose whole life is see Jesus. Paul, welcome to Family Life Today. It's good to be here again. I mean, you've written books after book and your core message is seeing Jesus.

That's right. I mean, so I'm over here preaching to the choir. I mean, what do I know? I mean, you've written about this.

You're known for this. And even this book title, Love Walked Among Us. Learning to love like Jesus. So as I read it, as we read it, we talked to each other about you just keep bringing us back to Jesus and how he models for us what love looks like. So we're excited to talk about that with you today. I mean, as you think about that, here's one of my first thoughts.

When was the first time you feel like you saw Jesus, really saw Jesus? Well, it actually goes back to my wife. A lot of things go back to my wife. You've been married what, 50 years? We've been married 50 years. So this is when we were married like 28 years and we had, we have six children.

And we had a three year old up to 16 year old with our daughter, Kim, right in the middle, who's got some disabilities. But anyway, she was going through a really hard time. It just kind of the weight of our daughter, Kim, and the pressure that put on our finances were really tight. And I mean, she was doing her Christmas shopping at thrift stores. It was a really hard time for us. We've been there. That's tough.

Yeah. And our kids would smell the presents when they, you know, cause she would go and get nice boxes and they would smell them. They could tell if they were, if she got it from the thrift store or not. And she challenged me one night. She asked me if I loved her.

We were going to bed, it was like 10 o'clock and I remember where I was cause I was going up the stairs to our second floor to bed. And then she asked me a second time if I loved her and I thought, well, hmm, well, you know, why did she do it twice? And you responded yes, I'm assuming? Well, the first time it was, yeah, of course I love you. I mean, did I tell you that 20 years ago? That's kind of a joke. Anything changes, you'll be the first to know.

But it really is true. I really did love her. And so it was like, what, you know, what was she, you know, what on earth was going on? And then she asked me a third time, do you love me? And then I got, you know, in good Christian fashion, I got irritated because I knew she was challenging me. She didn't think I loved her. I thought that's crazy. I mean, I started making a list of all the ways I loved her. I get the kids up in the morning, you know, I put them down at night.

I'm your ideal husband, you know. And she didn't say anything. It was 10 years later that someone pointed out to me it was very similar to what Jesus said to Peter.

It didn't even connect the dots at that. And my prayers, she was going through a ferociously hard time and just with all our finances, things with church, both our families and everything. I was actually concerned she was just going to, just almost shutting down. And my prayers that month, it was in January 91, kind of went from, God, help me to love my wife, to a little quieter, help me to love my wife, to completely quiet, God, would you show me what love is? And, sorry, it was just so amazing what God did. And the mission gave me a sabbatical the next month and I came to that sabbatical with that question on my mind.

So her question just sat on my heart. And so I thought, where am I going to learn how to love? I did what you said with the gospels. I just buried myself in the gospels. Eight hours a day I read the gospels and I studied them using this really old but fascinating book called The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah by Alfred Edersheim. It's probably the only really scholarly study of Jesus. It's about 150 years old and I studied Jesus as a person.

So what did I see? One of the first patterns I noticed was this pattern that Jesus had of looking, feeling compassion, and then acting. And it struck me in Luke 7, I was going chronologically through Jesus' life, Jesus encounters this funeral, he looks at the widow, feels compassion for her, and then acts.

And then I thought, wait a minute. And I flipped over to John, so that's in Luke 7, John 15, and I kind of vaguely remembered. And yeah, so in the parable of the lost son, the father looks, feels compassion, and then acts and runs to his son. And then I went, wait a minute, the good Samaritan. And I flipped over my Bible to Luke 10 and the third guy, the Samaritan that comes along, looks, feels compassion, and then acts. And I thought, wait a minute, Exodus 3, God with Moses, I've seen from heaven, I feel compassion for my pity, and I've come down. And it's all through Scripture.

It's how God, you know, to see Jesus is to see the Father. So what do I do? I skip those first two steps.

You go straight to action. Yeah, why not? We'll fix the problem. Well, I don't think I've even realized the looking part. Yeah. He sees. I mean, had you read that several times and it just hit you that he sees them, he looks at them.

Yeah. And his looking, there's about 30 incidents in the Gospels where it mentions Jesus looking. And it strikes, you know, there's a lot of visions you hear coming out of, particularly in the Muslim world. It's amazing.

I often will read them or read books about them. And it's fascinating how many will mention Jesus' eyes. Really? Yeah. It's a striking pattern. Because they've seen him in a dream.

Yeah. You know, what it is and what I was missing in this piece was attentiveness, where it's a focused attentiveness. And some of the scenes are really striking, like in John 9 with the blind man, probably by one of the city gates of Jerusalem, where he's just by the side of the road. Jesus just looks at him. He doesn't say anything, but he's looking there long enough that the disciples ask him a really mean question, you know, who sinned, this man or his parents?

And Jesus, of course, says neither, but, you know, this is that God might be glorified. But they, he's kind of teaching them to look. And then when you get to Acts, when they meet the layman at the hour of prayer, they look at him and they even tell the blind man, look at us.

Like, they learned how to be attentive. I love one of your quotes in this book is, Jesus' eyes give God a face. Yeah. Yeah. I pulled that out. I'm like, what a beautiful way to say that.

Because you get a glimpse of the heart of God through the eyes of Jesus. Guys, why do we just jump into action? Yeah. Why don't we look or have, as you were saying, Paul, like you just jump right to that. Yeah. Yeah.

Is that the easiest step and that's why we just jump to it? What, acting? Yeah. One of the stories I tell was when Jill, she came home from shopping and she was mad on a hornet. And she says she hadn't had enough money to buy hand cream and at that time she had problems with eczema on her hands and her money was really tight. And golly, my salary was like 42,000 a year. Now, this was 30 years ago and I had a tax business on the side and one of my managers had run away with a third of my customers.

So, I made no money on taxes that year on the side. So, we were really, it was just a really tight financial, and she just came home and she was sick of it. And she said that. And she said, one way we could save vacation was if I would go on vacation by myself, that'll save us some money. And I said to her, I had saved this little pot on the side and I said, I'll go buy you hand cream with my little money I saved on the side. And it wasn't much money, like 20 bucks or something.

And later that evening, as I reflected on it, I thought, I skipped the first two steps. Like I didn't, here's Jill distraught. And she said, you know, we've been tight for 10 years and she was sick of it. And she, you know, I had been in inner city urban Christian school.

We had started an urban Christian school and my salary was really low. And so, you know, she had borne some of the cost of those tight years. And I mean, so what she was doing was a kind of, it was a lament. You know, instead of focusing on her as a person, I was trying to fix the content of her words.

And she did not want her to, I couldn't fix the problem with 10 bucks. It was deeper than that. It was much deeper than that. And that was obvious.

Anybody could see that. And so I was skipping looking and feeling compassion. Like, you know, I wasn't caring for my wife's soul and where she was at. I was trying to fix her problem so she would stop complaining.

You follow? Because I was the target of her complaints. And not illegitimately so, because it was her, you know, coming alongside and being my wife when I'm in a career path, not making a lot of money. And, like, it's so common to skip those steps of looking, feeling compassion. I have to give you this story about Dave and I, this very similar scenario.

I don't even know what you're going to say. We've shared this before here, but I'm a young mom. We have three kids under five. I am so stressed out, and it was a day I felt like I'm failing as a mom. And so I'm sitting at the kitchen table. No, no, don't tell this story.

Seriously? Dave walks in, and he says, what's up? And I said, I feel like I'm the worst mom. I feel like I'm failing. I feel like I'm mad all the time at everybody. And I feel like I'm terrible at this.

And I was distraught. And he says to me, I'll be right back. So he goes upstairs.

He's gone maybe five minutes. And he comes down with a piece of paper. Oh, I'm a young, naive husband, as you will see. It's a little index card. And he has it numbered one to ten. And I thought, he went upstairs to write me, like, ten encouraging things about me as a mom. And so I'm like, oh, he hands it to me. And I read it out loud because I think this is the sweetest thing.

It's like a love note. And so I look at number one, and it says, get more organized. Number two, and I think surely it's going to get better.

Number two, use your time more wisely. Okay, we don't need to keep going. And again. I'm enjoying this.

We get the idea. I'm sure you are. He's trying to fix me because he sees I'm distraught. His heart's good. He's thinking this will help me.

Sure, right. And so I say to him, like, what is this? And he goes, I went upstairs and I thought, how can I help you? I told her I prayed and this was from God.

I actually said that. He said, I prayed and this is what God gave me. I said, this is not from God. This is from Satan. And I ripped it up and I threw it in his face. Oh, that's great.

That's just precious. So, as you're saying, when we are lamenting and we're in it, sometimes I don't even know what I need, but I don't want to be fixed. Yeah. I'm still amazed that my wife does not want my top three answers to her problem.

Yeah, what is wrong, right? I don't know. It still amazes me how comforted she is when I don't share those problems. Yes. And I'm attentive to her.

Now, sometimes she does want me to get moving with a job list. You know what I mean? Right. Well, Dave will say, what do you need from me right now?

Yeah. Well, the truth is, Paul, you've already said, our listeners, if they're tuning in and leaning in, I've already heard what Ann wanted in that moment and I didn't know, I now know, you know, what your wife wanted in that moment is for us to see them. It's compassion. To pay attention. To see.

Right? Well, Paul, Ann wanted is like, do you see, are you with me? Will you walk beside me? Don't fix it.

Just be my partner. So, Paul, what would have looked like, Jill came home, she was upset, and she said, I'm sick of this. If you had seen her and had been attentive, what would you have said? Oh, golly.

I've actually never thought of that. But anything like, ah, Jill, I'm so sorry. I mean, Jill, I wish my job was paying higher, you know. I'm sorry you're going through this because of your love for me, you know.

I'm sorry that my calling has made your life difficult. See, I get tears in my eyes just hearing that. It's like you understand.

Yeah. And maybe just being quiet, you know. I think I've been a lot quieter, you know. It's striking to see in Jesus' life how many of the things he says are so brief and short. And the less we say, the more of a punch. And I'm grown up evangelical, so we tend to multiply words without knowledge.

Like Job's friends. That is true. Funny. Well, you know, it is interesting to think on the other side of Jesus' eyes, what did the people that received that look from Jesus feel?

Yeah. I remember preaching on the story of the woman who broke the alabaster jar, and one of my thoughts right or wrong was, what made her come into that house and pour out her life, you know, her earnings on this man? And I said, there must have been a look somewhere on a street or something where she felt like this is the only man that's ever looked at me with the eyes of love. Yeah, something happened either in his teaching or his manner or something, that she felt Jesus as he were. But there's two stories of the alabaster jar. So the Luke 7 one, the first one, just think of how much looking was in that. It's all through, like in the beginning, Jesus in that story is so amazing. Jesus is just silent as he lets her weep at his feet. And you know, they're lying on low couches, and he doesn't even look at her. And it really makes it awkward because this woman is going nuts, and Simon's sitting there judging her, and then Jesus tells them that parable. And then he says to Simon, do you see this woman? So Jesus now turns and looks at her and tells Simon to look at her. Simon hasn't seen this woman, he hasn't seen Jesus, and he doesn't even see his own heart. I mean, Simon is blind at every level. So he's inviting Simon into love.

Here's another thing. Same Luke 7, where Jesus meets the widow of Nain. So Jesus looks at her, feels compassion, raises the dead son, and then the whole crowd is just riveted on Jesus. And Luke says that because they're kind of gasping.

I mean, this is incredible. This has happened in Elisha and Elijah's time, and that's it. And they're stunned, and everybody's looking at Jesus. And Jesus takes the son, we don't know how he did it, but he takes the son off the wicker basket, which they would use, and walks him over to his mom. And in other words, the miracle is not about Jesus, it's about her. Like, she's the center of it. He's valuing her as a person, and it's sort of the picture of his whole life. I mean, it's beautiful to envision these moments in real time, like we're watching them on video the way you described it. And I was thinking, you know, there's so much in this book, Love Walked Among Us, and we've only talked about the eyes of Jesus.

But let me say this, you know, what would our kids feel if we as parents looked and felt compassion and then acted, rather than immediately judging and laying down a rule? Or even, Dave, just being preoccupied with our phones. I feel like, oh, we're missing it.

We're missing these beautiful moments with our kids, because we're preoccupied and we're scrolling on our phones, and they need us to look at them and see them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it is, I mean, to learn how to look, it's kind of the simplest way to de-center yourself. What do you mean? You're moving outside of yourself and your world. You know, you're being attentive to others. And, you know, the other thing I thought about this pattern of Jesus, of looking, feeling compassion and then acting, and we call it the three steps of love.

Just a couple observations about it. One is a way, it mirrors the incarnation of Jesus. It's a kind of incarnating, and it's actually a verb that's been around in Christianity for about 300 years, but it's very little used. And you'll see it pop up in the counseling work.

But to incarnate with someone in our ministry is sort of our standard verb at See Jesus. It means to step in their shoes. So it's your first order of business in all relationships. So if a boss is upset with someone on your staff is doing, and you do need to talk to them about their one, what's your first step? You go to them, you incarnate with them. You ask them questions. You try to understand their world. What's going on? And then in the context of that, you share your honesty.

You know, but the first move, I'm always reminding my staff, is you understand. So someone else is mad at you, and you know it. You go to them and you incarnate with, you know, have I done something?

What's going on? You know, so it's a kind of a movement away from your world. It's the first movement of the golden rule, do to others as you would have them do to you. It's the very opposite of self. You're entering into another self, even if you know they're wrong, even if you know, say, as a manager, that you need to speak an honest word to them.

I mean, there's a whole lot of ifs here. It doesn't take away the need for an honest word, but it actually, just recently, we had a conversation with a staff member where an honest word was needed. But just by incarnating and coming in slowly, you found that, you know, there's a lot more stuff going on there. And in the middle of the meeting, I just decided to quietly pull back from some of the conclusions I had coming into the meeting.

You know what I mean? You're not a shape shifter. You're not losing your personality. And people, you know, we get afraid that if I do that with my spouse or my kids, that I'm going to lose my sense of self, my voice. But you're not.

You're just trying to understand theirs. I mean, in some ways, you just described the role of a Christian husband in a Christian way. I mean, husbands love your wife as Christ loved the church, Ephesians 5, 25. You just incarnate, walk into her world. Fathers, do not embitter your children. Dads, moms, incarnate into your kids' life. See them with the eyes of Jesus, feel what they feel, and then act.

What a beautiful picture. This is the answer to marriages and families. I'm just going to get real. When you're dealing with something really hard or your kids are- They're not allowed to get real.

They're not allowed to get real. If they have set you off, that is otherworldly to do that. Right. Like, our first response, mine is- You need the whole spirit power of God. I get mad, and I want to say something, and it's in my, like, the broken nature of me that I just want to react to it. And so, it takes a pulling back, a self-control- To see.

To not go off on my kids that have just totally messed up or done something. Yeah, yeah. So, you've learned that over the years. Well, and I keep learning it, you know. And I'll, yeah, golly, I messed up then, you know.

I really took it, I was too quick with my opinions. Most of my sins are in the speed end of things, not on the slow end of things. And I think you can sin at either end, you know. But let me just actually mention the flip side of this, that there is an opposite danger. So, you know, the opposite danger is that you over incarnate. Where you lose, and I see a lot of parents doing that with their kids, that they so want their relationship with their kid or their spouse or whatever, they have actually idolized the relationship. So, they're overvaluing, you know, it's almost like idolizing love. Love is not the center of the world, Jesus is.

And we learn how to love from Him. And if you over incarnate, then you almost always lose your biblical frame, your truth frame. And if you lose that truth frame, like these things are wrong, then you'll incarnate, but you'll never come back to honesty.

Don't lose that truth frame. So, the question is, how do we actually apply that to our lives? Well, hang on just a second, because Paul Miller is going to help us to see what that can practically look like in our lives. I'm Shelby Abbott, and you've been listening to Dave and Anne Wilson with Paul Miller on Family Life Today. You know, Paul has written a book called Love Walked Among Us, Learning to Love Like Jesus.

And you've heard today what that can practically look like. Now, this book is an encouraging and convicting look at Jesus' life on earth. And through that specific lens, it gives practical answers to questions like, how do you love without being trapped or used? And how do you love when you have baggage of your own that you're bringing into a relationship?

Well, his writing attempts to answer those questions through the lens of Jesus. This book is going to be our gift to you when you partner with us financially here at Family Life. You can go online to familylifetoday.com or give us a call with your donation at 800-358-6329. Again, that number is 800, F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. And feel free to drop us something in the mail, too.

Our address is Family Life 100 Lakehart Drive, Orlando, Florida, 32832. All right, here's Dave, Anne, and Paul to help us think more about the relationship between truth and love. Boom.

That was heavy. I mean, again, I'm not going to go there, but, you know, watching in an NFL locker room, the Detroit Lions chaplain, 12 different coaches, some coaches would come in and do that. I'm a player's coach.

I'm like a friend of the players. And they couldn't balance, you can be a friend, but you have to be the boss. They incarnated too much. Yeah.

And they lost their voice. Yeah. You're saying sort of that. You've got to incarnate, but if you go too far, you've lost. And it's not like you can incarnate too much.

It's just that you can put them at the center where they were never supposed to be. Even loving my wife, if I put her at the center, then I'm going to damage her because then I'm going to make her feelings central to the marriage as opposed to Christ. That's as deadly as being the opposite of not paying attention to her. I'm not doing her any good by not speaking the truth into her life.

Or she me. Yeah. And that's the balance you're talking about. And I think the application for all of us is to see. Yeah, me too. To feel. To act. It's where we started. It's to be Jesus.

God, give me eyes to see my spouse, my kids, my coworker, my neighbor. To feel what you feel. Yeah.

And then to act as you would act. Yeah. That would change your home tonight.

Yeah. Now, coming up tomorrow, Dave and Ann Wilson are going to be joined again by Paul Miller, where he'll talk to us about how to always be honest, even though it may not be well-received at first. That's coming up tomorrow. We hope you'll join us. On behalf of Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a donor-supported production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.