When It Alteration Finds

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds. ~William Shakespeare

At some point in your life, you will cease to meet someone else’s conditions and expectations. It is then that you will discover if they loved you unconditionally or if you were only ever loved because you met certain standards. And vice versa.

Yahweh loves you, and you need to change. Almost every religion starts with this concept. “Yahweh is a God of order, standards, and laws. You need to follow them to live your best life. Yahweh wants what’s best for you, and so He has laid out these rules like a parent loving a child.”

The Jews have 613 laws. I’d say Christianity has more, not because they are written down in canon, but because of the pervasive culture I grew up in which allows us to say “If you see someone about to walk over a cliff and they don’t see it, what’s the loving thing to do?” and then impose our view of the world and who Yahweh is upon other people. Ask a homosexual, a drug addict, a person who’s chosen to live with their unmarried boyfriend how comfortable they’d feel in church? How loved do Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Jews feel by Christians? These “standards” we religiously cling to are building walls between us. They are not unconditional love.

The problem is not the idea that Yahweh wants what's best for you. The problem is that we are still looking to laws to determine what that is. Many religions say they want relationship over religion, but then the religion pervades the relationship. If the relationship is still based on this idea of standards, conditions, or laws, it is built on the foundation of religion and not the other way around. "Yahweh loves you, and you must change" is not His unconditional Love. Nor is it necessary to put that on someone. "Yahweh loves you." Period. The end. If you're so worried about someone changing, then tell them that. I guarantee that once that person who so needs to change in the religious mind is introduced to the true unconditional Love of Yahweh, they will grow. They may not grow as religion want them to, but they will grow as Yahweh wants them to, and that's even better.

"Yahweh loves you enough to meet you where you're at, but too much to keep you there." I've heard this many times in many different ways. Again, we pair "love" with "need to change." But Love is Life, and growth is inherent in Life. So what this statement does is prevent people from accessing the true, unconditional Love of Yahweh that will provide the change that is being looked for in the first place. People will not be able to accept the Love of Yahweh fully if they think He only loves them in order to change them. People will not be able to believe that Yahweh truly Loves them if they think He only Loves who they will be when they have grown enough to meet certain conditions. Of course that’s not how Yahweh works! That's conditional love.

What if we got rid of our ideas of "right and wrong" completely? What if we tore down all standards, conditions, and laws? What if we moved past religion and found solely relationship? What if we could build our lives on the foundation of unconditional Love?

Sounds scary, right? To love without any expectation or standard, but imagine the world if we did.

From the foundation of unconditional Love, we can build theology and philosophies. No... we don't need those anymore. From there we can build relationships with Yahweh and others. Heck, from there we can build relationships with ourselves. From there we can learn how to love anyone including those who subscribe to other religions and those who do not fit in our boxes or move in our circles. We can love them without having to change them, without "wanting what's best for them." Without secretly judging their choices and thinking they're doing the "wrong" thing just because they choose something differently than you. Just simply. Just Love. Just like Yahweh Loves.

He will Love you as much if you never change as if you do. He Loves you as much right now as He ever will.

What if we could Love people like that? Imagine the world that would build! A world where no one has to act on insecurities, where no one hates themselves or others for not meeting certain requirements, where no one feels isolated because they're different. A world where no one enters into a relationship expecting to change someone or expecting to be left if we don't change fast enough or if we decide to go a different direction. A world where we could make different choices and realize one is not better or worse than another, just different. A world where people could grow with Yahweh without worrying about the conditions others put into His mouth. We are not supposed to live our lives meeting the conditions of others! We are supposed to be loved no matter what. What if we only loved people and only used discernment to determine where people are coming from and what loving that specific person looks like?

If we truly believe Yahweh loves us unconditionally, then we have no religion in that love. No conditions. No standards. No requirements. I truly believe that the life built on that unconditional love will meet and surpass all of the conditions we thought we had to have for perfection, for joy, for glory, for beauty. Yes, it's scary to truly remove all religion from your life. Yes, it's easy to think humanity unbound by religious rules will move chaotically into a destructive and hateful path. But that's only because our mindset has been built on the idea that humans are inherently evil. What if we let go and let God and find that we were created all along in unconditional Love? What if we discovered that humans are inherently Loving?

What if we trusted Yahweh enough to actually love unconditionally?