Scripture- John 13:35

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Prayer Focus: Our youth quickly recognized that it’s one thing to talk about love, but it’s a whole other thing to live it out. So, we began to think about what makes love so hard for us. Here are a few things they shared:

Ego. We don’t want to admit that we could be wrong about something or that we might have messed up.

It’s hard to love people who have hurt you or upset you. And sometimes people are mean!

High schoolers talked a lot about hypocrisy. We can be hypocritical. We like to talk about loving people without really doing it. And sometimes we Christians are the worst about that! There are examples in history where we have hurt other people in the name of Jesus. We need God’s forgiveness for all the ways we’ve failed at following Jesus’ instructions.

As you reflect on this text and the youth’s reflections today, what do you think makes love so hard? Are there certain people or groups that you find particularly difficult to love? Today, I pray that we may all ask God to help us to love, especially when it is hard.