The Lowest Seat | Crossroads Daily

Hey, I'm Chuck. I'm Kirsten. I'm Miko. And I'm Debo. Thanks for joining us today. We're having this conversation daily as we go through Holy Week together because, man, there's so much to glean from these last chapters of Jesus's life. I don't know if you guys know this, John 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17, 25% of the book of John all happens in the same room. It's crazy. We're in the same building. And so there's so much here to unpack. And so every day we're looking at one of those. And today we're talking about a love that gets uncomfortable. So here's a question. I want you to put in mind someone you really love, a spouse, a child, someone you really love. Scale of 1 to 10, how comfortable would you be washing their feet? A 10? A 10. Impressive. I don't really like feet. My little baby's chubby feet, I want to eat them. I mean, I change diapers. So washing feet, that's like... You guys are impressive. I'm with you. I'm not a man of feet. So, yeah, it would not be comfortable for me to wash feet. OK, now I want you to think of the person who betrayed you the most in life. Scale of 1 to 10, how comfortable would you be washing their feet? Yeah, no way. Zero. Maybe you don't even want to be in the same room with them. What's before zero? I'm in the negative. Right? I mean, that's the crazy thing about this John 13 experience with Jesus, washing his disciples' feet, because Judas is in there, who's about to betray him. Peter is in there, who is going to deny him. And so maybe one question to think about is, as you think about this experience and what we just read, when's a time when love was uncomfortable for you? My youngest brother, who definitely played a significant role just in my walk with crisis, an adult, but also he just went on like a steep decline a few years ago mentally

and really just began struggling with some mental health issues. And just being in close quarters with him and not having the means to separate myself really kind of like brought on some real tension in that household and our family. And, yeah, some stuff I'm still kind of healing from, if I'm honest. But, yeah, so I could say that that's probably been the most difficult situation for me, where it's like I know I'm supposed to love, but it's like, what does it have to look like? Definitely. I think for me, I had a very complicated relationship with my dad, where he left when I was really little and moved away and came in and out of my life. And I started following Jesus when I was in college or so. And all I had in my head was like, Jesus would love, Jesus would love. Like, you got to love. You don't want to impact his relationship that he could have with Jesus. And so that caused me to actually... Because he wasn't following Jesus at the time. No, no. And it was hard for me because I dealt with a lot of things that I wasn't willing to put up boundaries for because it felt like that's the only way that you could love someone is just by being like, well, I guess I'll take it. That's a really interesting point because, yeah, I mean, I think it'd be easy for someone to listen to what we're saying now. I don't want you to finish your story. Yeah. And think that, okay, this is about me needing to just take everything. Yes. And that's not necessarily the case either, right? No. But that's the first person that came to my head. And I feel like I've gone through the whole forgiveness cycle,

and I really do feel that way. But it came through really hard boundaries that I had to put up that I feel like not only loved him well because I wasn't faking it or trying to be someone I wasn't around him, and I really do believe sometimes that's the best way to love that person. And I feel like it gave him freedom from trying to be someone he wasn't to me and then same vice versa. And so I pray for him still all the time, and I feel like that's the best way I can spiritually wash his feet. Yeah. I think. Show him love. Yeah, it's good. Thanks, Kirsten, for sharing that. Yeah, of course. It's a real story. Yeah, I think similarly, I think we share the same kind of strange relationship. My father was not a great man, and so growing up, he was abusive towards my mom. I saw him act in these certain ways towards her, and I think for me, I held a lot of resentment towards him and unforgiveness, and I still struggle with forgiving well and showing grace. And when I read this and I think, okay, Jesus knows that this person is actively betraying him and will be betraying him. I'm like, I can't even, and then he instructs us to do the same. I'm like, I don't know. Like explicitly instructs us to do the same, you know? I don't know if I can, I struggle really hard. Like it's a hard thing for me to, especially if I know the person's doing it to me,

like to show grace and to show love. That's something I struggle with now, even as a follower of Jesus. So yeah, I read that and it stings every time. Yeah, yeah. And I think about my relationship with my dad and I, yeah, it's hard, yeah. And I think the truth is we can't do it without Jesus. I don't think that he's setting this example for, you know, for you watching, I don't think he's setting this example to say, yeah, now go do the thing. I think he's saying like, I want you to know how much you need me to love this way. But the thing that always strikes me about this particular chapter is that you get Jesus's objective right from the very beginning. It says, and loving his disciples in his ministry, he now loved them to the end. So everything he does here, and obviously everything he's about to do is about him showing us how to love like him and empowering us to do it. It really is. So, and as hard as it is to show that kind of love, I can relate to Peter. It's hard to receive that kind of love too, right? Peter's like, you don't wash my feet. And I've certainly had times in my life where people have wanted to love me

and I've made it hard for them to love me. Can you guys relate to that? It's been hard to receive love. Yeah, absolutely. I've actually had someone tell me some years ago, to your point where it's, and they were speaking about me, but they said it in a phrase, where it's the people who are the hardest to love are the people that need it the most. And I don't know what it was about me that just made it so hard, you know. But it's like, I know that whatever I was wrestling with, like I know, like it was, I just wasn't receptive to it. I wasn't receptive to it. I didn't create space for it. Didn't even really feel like I needed it. And yeah, so I definitely can relate to that, yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, there's so much in this chapter alone. And here in Holy Week, as we're processing this, I think all of this is meant for us to be a mirror, right? To look at ourselves and say, what is this saying to me? And then also Jesus means what he said when he said, I want you to love others the way that I do. And so as we continue these conversations this week about Holy Week, I think there's something that God wants to unlock in all of us about how to love this way. And I'm excited to get into that with you guys.

Yeah, me too. I know one piece that keeps standing out to me as we keep talking about him, the instruction for us to love people. He says, by this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. So it's like the weight of it as well, like the purpose behind it. It isn't just love people to be a good person. It's like, no, there's weight to this. All right, let me, I'm gonna throw a spicy question out there. I love spicy. On a scale of one to 10, how spicy are we? I mean, it depends on where we go with the answer. We'll see. Yeah, love one another this way so the world will know that we are his disciples. How are we doing, Church? How are we doing on this one? Depends on what room I'm in. Yeah. I want this to be the most honest room. So in your most honest room, how are we doing on that? Not as great as I could be. Not as great as I could be. I think that's exactly right. I think I go into church, I live in a lot of church circles where it's easy to match the level

that everyone else is kind of walking in of like, okay, I'm not gonna talk this way or I'm not gonna be disrespectful this way. But really, I struggle with this with my family who a lot of my cousins and aunts and uncles who don't know Jesus and don't know these scriptures, you would think like, oh, they need this the most. They need the most love. And they are the hardest to love sometimes. Like, I really do. It's almost that thing that people have said where if you go back to your childhood home, you revert back to childhood mindsets. It's like my Christmas, my Easter, my family parties, I go and it's like, I'm back in 2013 Kirsten brain. Can I tell you one of my mantras? And it is a mantra. Every time I go home to see my family, I tell myself at some point, Chuck, you are not eight years old anymore. I literally have to tell myself that. Because you just regress to this thing. What am I doing? It's so real. Where are my socks? Yes. Yes. Mom. Rocky. It's terrible.

Like, I joke like they joke. I talk like they talk. Right? I don't want to. It's easy to fall back. And I think it's so much, it's a good challenge. This is a really good challenge because with Easter coming up, I want to go in with a mindset. that I'm like, I'm going to love them through the way that I act and the way that I bring food. Usually I'm just like, who's here to feed me? I think that I should bring something for work. Oh, you're that person, Kirsten. You're that person. And do you leave with food? I'm going to be buying a pie to bring to the party, but yeah, I think I have some work to do this Easter. Yeah, man. Yeah, I agree. I think that, yeah, I feel like this is an area for me to work on recently. This specific idea of just grace and love and specifically love being a fruit of the spirit, I think it makes me look on the inside and be like, okay, I see direct correlation with when I spend time with God, these fruits like love, like pour out so much more easily. And so I think it's even a deeper question for me of like, okay, have I just filled my time in my like week with just busyness that, and I've skipped out on the time that I can spend with the Lord where love can be like almost this outpour that I show just my husband and my, the people I work with and my family, like you said, Kirsten, like I, I think it's even a deeper question for me of like these daily readings that we have are not just supposed to be for just Easter or just for, you know, certain times it's like for every day, like

our daily bread and the word and that because of that love and the fruits of the spirit, I think come out of our, yeah, our talk, like every time we talk to people and every time we're on people. So, yeah, that's a great place to land. So as we get into today, man, live this out. What's one thing you can do today to live out the kind of love that gets uncomfortable.