I Love Everybody

I had a most wonderful experience a few weeks ago.
I had been thinking for some time about Jesus'
command to love everybody. It's hard to do; there
are some people it's hard to even like. A while
back I had decided that if somebody that I really
didn't like were starving, I would certainly feed
them; does that constitute love? Hmmm, probably
not.

I was riding my bike on the river-front Loop
Trail, thinking about all this. I looked at all
the people going by, and I thought, “you know, all
those people are just like me. Sure, they have
problems, they're far from perfect, but then, so
am I. In spite of their defects and their
problems, Jesus loves them; every one of them.
And in spite of my defects and my problems, Jesus
loves me. If Jesus can love me in spite of all my
defects, and Jesus can love them in spite of their
defects, then I can love them, too.”

And for a few minutes, I think I actually did love
them all. Every one of them. It was wonderful!
I thought “wow, this must be how Jesus feels all
the time!” I think if anybody had looked at me
during those few minutes, I probably would
literally have been glowing. It's like when you
love everybody, maybe you feel the love of
everybody else coming back at you, or maybe God
pours a little extra love on you or something. It
was an amazing feeling.

If you're looking for advice on how to feel that
way, I'm afraid I can't help you. I don't know
how to do it. I don't know what it was that I
did, or that you should do. Pray a lot, maybe?
Ask God to fill you with that kind of love? I
just don't know, but I'm going to keep working at
it. I want to feel that way all the time.