"when you love, you do."

Every year the CCO, whom i work for (the Coalition for Christian Outreach), hosts a conference called "Jubilee." this year's theme was "In Him all things hold together." Jubilee always has this wonderful message that Christ can be, and should be exalted and worshiped through all things. Especially in our majors, vocations, and callings.

One of the main speakers was Bob Goff, a mentor of a favorite author of many young adults, Donald Miller. And his one quote, which i will do my best to represent, was the highlight of the conference to me.

Bob mentioned the movie "Groundhog Day." The movie is based on Bill Murray's character, Phil (a great name), reliving the same day (Groundhog Day, a mediocre holiday. Seriously, no matter what the rodent does, there's more winter. We might as well call it "Bad or worse news day.") over and over and over again. There are some obvious comedic points as a result. But one of the things he does is memorize all this information about a girl so as to woo her. The girl catches on a little and asks, "Are you trying to memorize me?"

After telling that reference, Bob then shared this incredible quote, "When you love, you do."

There are two things i recall being taught about Christianity. Never in just one lesson. But simply over time.

A) Don't __________ (fill-in-the-blank with your typical cardinal sins of drinking, sexual activity, cussing, etc.)

and

2) Memorize __________ (insert Bible verse, typically taken out of context that helps us with letter A above)

This isn't any one person's fault, or even any one of the church's i attended fault. It's more likely a systemic fault. We as the church often leave out the conversation on love. And therefore, we don't do.

God doesn't want to be memorized just like Phil's lady friend didn't want to be memorized.

And people don't want a God they have to remember everything about. They want a God that loves them. And we reveal God in the way that we act every day. No one that needs His love really sees what we memorize about Him. And they likely don't care if they haven't witnessed any sense of His love from us to them.

What if every week we focused not so much on our "devotions" (which are very important, and the backbone to our "doings" and worthy of a blog here in the future) and our "memorizations" but we dedicated ourselves to at least one out of the ordinary act of love a week? A day, even.

Now, Bob told some ridiculous stories of his involving his kids, how he became a consul to Uganda, flipping Jeeps and giving the person at fault a bouquet of flowers, etc.

But the only thing that makes him the speaker on the stage and us the listener in the seats is...

he acted.

"When you love, you do."