Love Alone Doesn't Resolve It

I read a post this morning about a thief that was stealing multiple times from close friends.  As the stories of stolen items began building, there were people saying that maybe public posts on this weren't the solution.  Their theory was that public scrutiny is not what the thief needed.  Instead, the thief needed support and love.  He needed help.

I get this all the time.  "Well isn't that the Christian thing to do?"  No.  No it's not.  Jesus didn't say, "I love you prostitute but keeping on hooking because I don't want to hurt your feelings."  Jesus said (and I'm paraphrasing here), "I love you EXACTLY the way you are but I love you too much to let you continue this behavior."  The Christian way IS to love people where they're at.  The Christian way is NOT to encourage them to continue their destructive behavior.  I'll say that again: The Christian way is NOT to encourage them to continue their destructive behavior.

Let me give you an example of how this works:

Your 2 year old throws a gigantic tantrum in the store and begins throwing around jars of jam in his reign of terror.  You don't love your child any less for throwing a tantrum.  In fact, you love him just the same.  What you don't love is his destructive behavior.  It is not a solution to let him continue to destroy things in order to "hit his rock bottom."  It's a solution to stop what he's doing, offer discipline and help him to find a solution on what to do again.  What's the discipline?  Well, maybe it's cleaning up his mess.  But yes, he will be dealing with looks from onlookers because his behavior was unfavorable.

Yes, friends should be there when their loved ones are acting a fool.  But they shouldn't be there to just say, "Oh well, that's Bob.  He just does that."  Instead, you should be enough of a friend to say, "Bob, that's unacceptable.  You're acting like a dick."  Bob may not like being called a dick but he'll know that his behavior is unacceptable.  Instead of enabling him, you're letting him know that you love him but you're not going to take his crap.  You don't help anyone including an addict by enabling them.  You can't love someone through their bad behavior/addiction (meaning you can't think that love, alone, will resolve it.)  Love them enough to say, "I love you but I'm not going to allow you to continue to be destructive."

So spare me the whole "love him through it."  Of course you should love them but that doesn't mean you can't call them out for what they're doing.  Whether it's private or public is a matter of opinion; though my preference is private.  If you don't like being called out, though, don't do the crimes that get you called out.