The relationships you struggle with the most? This episode is for those. Juli sat down with Bible teacher Jada Edwards to share stories about the ways they’ve fallen short when it comes to loving others, and how God has transformed their understanding of what it means to love the way He does. (Spoiler alert: Sometimes the best way to learn love is to start with the person who bugs you the most.)
Prefer to listen? Listen to the full episode here.
Juli (00:01.858)
Hey friend, welcome to Java with Juli hosted by me, Juli Slattery. This podcast is listener supported and it’s an outreach of Authentic Intimacy a ministry dedicated to helping you make sense of God and sexuality. Now as followers of Jesus, we are supposed to be known by our love, but if we’re honest, that’s not always how it plays out. I mean, sometimes the people who feel our love the least are actually the people closest to us.
And when it comes to those who think or live or believe differently, that kind of love can almost feel impossible. So what we’re going to be talking about today is how we can love like God loves us. When it’s hard, when it’s awkward, and when it’s just plain messy. My guest is Bible teacher, Jada Edwards, and we’re going to be talking about her new book, “A New Way to Love Your Neighbor”.
You’ll hear how God challenged Jada about the way she thought she was loving others and how that process truly transformed the way she approaches her relationships today. Jada and her husband Conway planted One Community Church in Plano, Texas in 2008, and it now has over 13 campuses. I had the privilege of speaking there earlier in the year.
And I’m not kidding when I say there was something noticeably different about the way this congregation loved each other. It seemed almost tangible. And that’s why I’m so excited to share Jada’s wisdom with you today. So let’s head to the coffee shop for my conversation with Jada Edwards.
Juli (01:39.854)
Well, Jada, I am so happy to have you on Java with Juli. am remembering back to the very first time I met you, which was probably 100 years ago. It feels like it was another life. It was. Yeah. Do you remember it?
Jada
Yes, we went to focus on the family. We went there in person and you and someone else, think, interviewed me and Conway, my husband, about a book about dating and singles that we had just written.
Juli
Yeah, I still remember that. And the thing I particularly remember was you saying to Conway that you would not cook dinner for him while you were dating. And, the thing that struck…
Jada
I sell to it.
Juli
So, I mean, I had never heard somebody say like that’s a form of emotional intimacy. And I think we had a whole conversation about like boundaries, not just physical boundaries, but emotional boundaries. So yeah, do you still talk about that?
Jada (02:36.566)
We do. It’s so funny. It just came up a few months ago in a conversation I was having and they were like, you know, it was a woman asking me that specific thing. She’s like, I love cooking. It’s part of my love language. What do you think about that? And when we’re dating, it’s like, I mean, it’s your call, but here’s what I did, you know? And when I talked to her about it, she’s like, I don’t think I ever thought about that. I said, I mean, it’s a lot. It’s not bad, but you got to know yourself, have some self-awareness and, you know, make sure that you’re managing your investment until there’s commit.
Juli
Yeah, I had never heard that example before and I don’t think I’ve heard it since. So what was it about cooking a meal that felt like a boundary you need to set?
Jada
I think for me, and I do enjoy cooking, I don’t get to do it as much as I used to, but I was just thinking about needing to know, because if I wanted it to go well, then I was thinking I would need to know his likes, his dislikes, I’m catering something to him, and I don’t know why, it just felt intimate. It felt like I’m putting this person first to try to create this experience and then do this work, this labor for this person. It just felt very marriage like. And I was like, I don’t know how I feel about that. If I do this and this ends next week, or we decide how do I feel then? And for some people, they can do that and it doesn’t bother them. You might be a professional chef, who knows? You cook all the time. For me, I knew it felt like some level of emotional investment that I didn’t know that I was ready to give until I knew exactly where his intentions were.
Juli (04:11.072)
Yeah. So you don’t really if he may be married you because he just wanted your cooking or…
Jada (04:19.822)
Actually the first night I cooked for him was the night he came over to ask my father for my hand in marriage. And so he didn’t know I was cooking that night. So when he got to my parents house he was like, did you cook? I said, yeah buddy, this is it.
Juli (04:34.894)
My goodness. Do you know what you mean?
Jada
It was like Italian, so we did like, and my dad really is the cook, so he was helping me. did like some, I feel like lasagna and garlic bread and some kind of rice dish and some salad, like fancy salad. Like we were trying to do all the things. We were all chipping in to cook, but yeah. I remember running home from work and buying stuff and shopping and making stuff in the kitchen. I was like, this is why. This is why you shouldn’t get this in a casual dating relationship. This took up my whole evening.
Juli
Well, that is the one thing I remember from our conversation. I’m sure there were many otherwise nuggets, but that’s what I remember 15 or 20 years later.
Jada
Commitment.
Juli
There you go. I got the chance to reconnect with you a few months ago when you invited me to come to your church and speak, which was super fun. I was like, yeah, this is so cool. And boy, God has really blessed your ministry, your church.
Juli (05:35.65)
You know, I had time in like what you call a green room of hanging out, like getting ready for my time to speak and got to know a lot of, particularly the women that are in your church. And every single one of them seem to have a story about how much they love your church. And it really is a family. It’s a place of belonging. It’s a big church. So I walked away thinking, how in the world did you do that? Like, I feel like that’s really lacking in particularly American culture.
Jada
Yeah, I think, I don’t know, some of it comes out of both Conway and I have deep desire for community and connection. And we both grew up in Christian homes and loved our respective churches, his in Jamaica, mine here. And I think as we really embarked on Planting One, that was just one of the things that we wanted to really focus on because especially at the time, 17 years ago, life groups, small group community, that kind of stuff was not anywhere in the African American church like that. I mean, there’s still a lot of churches that don’t do that. And so that was just a foreign concept, know, being transparent and vulnerable. And I think that was just something that was important to us.
And then as the Lord was growing it at such a rapid pace, it became more important because we didn’t want to be the lid. There’s a leadership law, the law of the lid, you know, that says you can only lead up to your capacity. Well, no one person can visit a thousand people in the hospital. So you need to immediately start empowering leaders and creating coaches and giving people this freedom and kind of a charge to say, man, love your people. They don’t need to just come to these one, two, three or four or five leaders. Love your folks.
Jada (07:25.164)
And so I love it when I hear experiences hundreds and hundreds and thousands of experiences that did not involve any of our senior leaders, none of our executive pastors, none of our staff, it’s just people loving each other well. And I think also both of us have a pretty transparent leadership style and teaching style. I mean, if I’m talking about, I just taught a couple of weeks ago and you know, people are always laughing because I’m gonna talk about what’s going on in our marriage. We’re not speaking the hypotheticals. I’m telling you yesterday, we were in an argument and here’s how we had to navigate that.
So I think that transparency helps people feel like, oh, everybody’s life is crazy. And so I think it helps to bring the guard down a little bit. so between that and community, our goal is that you’re not walking into several thousand people in a room. You’re looking for your people. And so the goal is always to say, hey, if somebody is consistent here, they’re a member here, and they stop showing up, somebody should know about it. Like, who’s calling them? And so the guy that I was just saying lost his mother.
He’s in another state. He’s posted pictures of all the people from the church that drove down to the services and some in his ministry, some are just friends he’s known and I love it. Makes my heart full. Cause I couldn’t be there, but 10 other people were there, you know? And he’s just like the phone calls, my church, I mean, that’s the stuff that for me is very filling.
Juli
Yeah, and it’s so needed, Jada. Like, I can’t tell you how many Christians I interact with who love Jesus. They’re reading their Bibles, but they just don’t feel connected to the body of Christ. Maybe they attend church or maybe they don’t even. And I know that’s a big part of what’s on your heart. You actually just wrote a book that talks about how Christians are to be unique in the way that we love our neighbors. We love each other.
And I’m sure a lot of what you’ve written in that book is kind of the lifeblood of what has created that kind of community in your church.
Jada (09:19.266)
Yeah, I think that call to love, that call of the believer is something that is so defining, foundational for every area of life. It is not just friendship or marriage or family, it’s everything. And so I think even in preparing for the book, there were some personal things going on with me and Conway and then things I saw in the culture where, know, coming out of COVID when I first started working on this book acouple of years ago, I was like, man, how are we saying these things to each other? I’m reading comments in social media and disagreement turns into character assassination and I’m cutting you out of my life. And it was just, and these were believers, believers who could not navigate well when they were disappointed or hurt or disagreed. And I was like, this is not a side thing for us to do. After you come to Jesus, try to be nicer. No, Jesus says, this is the mark. Like people will know you belong to me by the way you love. So it’s a simple concept, but very, very difficult to try to apply in every area of life just because we have a bent toward self-centeredness. So yeah, it shows up in everything.
Juli
So when you were writing this, did you feel like you’re sort of writing it to yourself too? What was it like?
Jada
This was like, I thought I had it kind of together and let me invite you into how the Lord just jacked up my whole. Because I was like, it started, well, it was things I was saying in culture. Then I’d be, you know, I’d be reading comments, social media. Then you click on the person’s profile, they made the hateful comment. And the profile would be like, you know, daughter of the king, son of, I was like.
Juli (10:48.588)
Yes, please.
Jada (11:03.766)
Really? Which King? Okay. So it was a little bit of that, but then I remember just going through a weird funky season in marriage and asking the Lord faithfully to fix my husband. Like any good wife should. Just ask the Lord to fix your husband. I’m kidding. Yeah, know.
Juli
I’ve been married long enough to know that.
Jada
Yes, but it doesn’t matter how much we know we shouldn’t do that. Somehow the prayer ends up turning into, but also Lord, if you could just help him do this. And it was a moment where I believe the Lord was saying to me, you you have a love issue. And I was like, what’s the love issue? You know, I love my husband, I love you. And I really believe that the Lord was kind of bringing his clarity that
Yes, Jada, you love me, you love your husband, but you love your idea of marriage or you love what you want from your husband more than all the things right now. You love it more than me. You love me and you’re needing me to come help you achieve this idea, but you’re not loving me first because if I was your first top love right now, we would be having a different conversation. And it was jarring for me, I think, because I was like, I mean, I’ve been a believer for many, many years. I think I love God.
And I do love him and I loved him then, but I don’t know that I loved him first. I don’t know that my love for God was driving everything else. And I think what happens is it’s so easy to try to deal with what we see, what’s in the physical, what’s visible. So that’s our relationships, you know, with colleagues and coworkers and spouses and friends and family, that’s what we’re trying to fix or alter.
Jada (12:52.222)
And it’s counterintuitive because for the Christian, there’s this invisible spiritual love that is supposed to drive all of that. And it often gets forgotten, compartmentalized. I had my quiet time, I talked to the Lord today, maybe, but also I need to figure out these relationship things. And we separate the two as opposed to taking the love we’re supposed to have for God and building on it. We kind of just put it over there and then take a totally separate approach with how we navigate relationships.
Juli
Boy, that is so true. And it can be within five minutes of, I had this sweet time with the Lord. Yeah, I even prayed for my husband and then five minutes later life happens and you’re like, know, fighting for…
Jada
Your closing prayer.
Jada (13:32.076)
Yeah. Where he sends you a text and you’re like. You’re like, Lord, we did that quite a time. Why did it not fix this text message?
Juli
I know I just told you to change him and he’s not changed. So when God started to speak to you about this, then you started to see, know, like, hey, maybe I’m a lot more like the people I’m seeing on social media than I realize. What did you do next? Like, where did he take you?
Jada (14:03.054)
I’m a bit of a information junkie. I’m kind of a, I really started asking myself, what am I missing? I think I understand what this great command is to love God with your heart, soul, and strength. And then it opened up for me a whole new, I don’t know, discovery mission. was like, I need to, there’s something I’m not getting and I’m an information. I’m like a research, let me get into it and figure it out. And so even just, it took me to doing more research study in the Word to figure out what exactly is this thing that God has called us to and how do I live this out every day. And before I could get to the relational side, I just found it fascinating to look at how God’s expression of love and God’s requirement of love has evolved throughout the scripture.
He’s always been perfect and loved perfectly, but if you look in the Old Testament, you’ll see “ahab love”, which is like a relational love between two people. And then you’ve got “Hesed love”, which was huge, loyal, covenantal love, but that was still between God and his people. You so you had these kinds of love that were either person to person between two human beings or God to his people. And then you get into the New Testament and you’re introduced to this concept of “agape love” and you don’t find any equivalent of it in the Old Testament.
It actually takes all the mentions of Old Testament love, all those expressions and definitions, and rolls them into something bigger and creates something higher because now you have this truth that God so loved the world, that it wasn’t just God loving his people, keeping out the foreigner and the stranger, which is very much a theme in the Old Testament, prophets for his people, or to bring unbelievers to himself, and then they would experience that covenant to love.
Now you have God sending Jesus saying, hey, I’m gonna send my son, he’s gonna live perfectly, he’s gonna die, be raised, and then you decide if you believe it or not. I’m gonna do all my things first, and then you get to decide if you wanna accept it. It’s overwhelming to me to think about what that really means. And we see glimpses of it. He delivered from Egypt before he gave the 10 commandments. And he says, I’m the God, I’m the one that delivered you from Egypt. Now, here’s how I want you to love me.
Jada (16:23.864)
So you saw, we’ve always seen the nature of God making the first move, but that was reserved for his people. And then you get into the New Testament, he’s like, I’m making the first move for the world. And so we start to see glimpses of what agape love looks like. And those principles are what begin to resonate with me, making the first move, taking the initiative, doing what God’s asking me to do in a relationship without knowing if it’s gonna be appreciated or noticed or reciprocated.
Like, He’s like look how I’ve loved you, Jada. Those principles start to shift the way you see your relationships, because we are not wired for that. We’re not wired to do all the things without some assurance that it’s going to be appreciated or reciprocated or noticed or something. And guys like, you have it in me. So if they don’t do it, you’re still good. You have it in me. that, yeah, I had to sit down a few times.
Juli
I mean, you just said a whole lot there that I think we need to sort of unpack and highlight some things. You know, first of all, use the word evolve like God’s love has evolved across scripture. And I think it’s really important to clarify, like, God always had that love.
Jada
Yeah, the expression of it.
Juli
He’s progressive in his revelation. Like he hasn’t changed. But when we read scripture, we see that, you know, as the apostle Paul said, like in the fullness of time, when the time was right, he revealed this manifold wisdom that was always there. And I think there’s some, you know, like debate and argument within evangelical circles of is God evolving? No, he’s the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, but his revelation is continuing to evolve.
Juli (18:10.446)
But as you say that, I think when we look back at the Old Testament, there is an element to which, even though he had this covenant love, it was conditional. And the way he taught…
Jada
Absolutely, yes, about that a little bit. You’re right.
Juli
And the way he… Okay, yeah, and he taught the Hebrews to love conditionally in some ways, because it was like, you know, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, sort of, we don’t see a turn the other cheek in the Old Testament.
Juli (18:38.72)
And so when Jesus comes and he starts saying these things, I think as New Testament Christians, we don’t realize how foreign that was.
Jada
It was a whole paradigm shift. were probably like, wow. This was the God who was like, hey, don’t let foreigners even near your camp. Don’t let strangers in. Don’t intermarry people that are not for me because he was at that time, you know, when you understand dispensations, how what God was doing, it’s not that he was being hateful toward people. He loved all creation, but he was choosing a group of people to be his representatives.
As opposed to now, he’s like, anybody that believes can be my representative. And in that representation, it was very limiting. If you weren’t in the chosen group, you had to do a lot. As a matter of fact, even Exodus, like, if the stranger gets circumcised and he’s with you for a period of time and he follows your rules, then maybe he can be a part of you. So there was a lot of conditions to come into that fold and then to see that shift. And it’s important because what God’s calling us to when he says, love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind and strength.
He’s calling us to love in the way he loved through his son, not the way he showed love in the Old Testament, which was awesome in and of itself. But he’s saying, no, I’m calling you to this new way to love. And it’s comprehensive and there’s no guarantees you’re going to get out of it. And it’s sacrificial and it’s not necessarily logical that like they don’t owe you anything. You can’t demand any certain behavior. There’s no entry fee, no application. It’s just like. Just love, love everybody and then trust me to do the rest. And that is hard for us.
Juli (20:12.76)
That’s for sure. Well, you know, I think the other piece of it is in the Old Testament, people didn’t have the indwelling Holy Spirit. And so it not only is hard, it’s impossible. And it’s the Holy Spirit within us that makes it possible, which is it’s hard to imagine that followers of Yahweh didn’t have the Holy Spirit the way we do. Like we can’t even imagine the difference.
Jada
Ain’t that something. Yeah, it’s kind of like, what a time to be alive. Like, that you weren’t waiting on a visitation, that the Spirit once visited for certain reasons to empower, to appoint anoint, you know. But now, all the time, He’s with you. So yeah, that’s a great point. And that’s part of what I hope people take away as they’re reading it, that they’re not just overwhelmed by God’s love, that I do want them to feel that overwhelming gratitude, but not for it to be paralyzing where you’re like, there’s no way I can love like this. We know you can’t on your own. Like God is saying, you have my spirit to model my love through you. If you would just ask me, I can show you what to do moment by moment. But yeah, it’s a very high calling, a very, high calling to love your neighbor as yourself.
Juli (21:32.098)
Hey friend, I’m jumping into our conversation just for a quick minute. I know you’re here because you care about navigating sexuality and relationships with truth and love. And I so appreciate that. Our goal with our podcast is to encourage and equip you, but it’s only a sliver of what we do at Authentic Intimacy. If you’re looking for more practical resources and ongoing conversations that are grounded in God’s design for sexuality, please don’t stop here.
When you sign up for our email list, you’ll be the first to know about brand new resources or tools, upcoming events and webinars, registration dates for online book studies and coaching intensives, and exclusive content that you’re not going to find anywhere else. So head to AuthenticNMC.com or just click the link in our show notes to stay connected. We’d love to keep walking with you on this journey. Now back to the coffee shop.
Juli
Well, as you just explained, you know, your natural tendency is to go researching the scripture. I’m a mind person too. I’m like that. I’m like, all right, let me figure this out. But then it has to be walked out. So let’s talk about like how that actually changed the way you interact with your family, your brothers and sisters in Christ. Like what is different about you because of what God showed you about love?
Jada
Yeah, I think it’s changed the way I receive information from people and in turn how I can offer love back to them because part of what I also talk about in the book is this inner work that needs to be done. It’s the idea of David in Psalm 139, 23 and 24 near the end of Psalm 139, him saying, search me, search me, God know me, show me, try my heart. And that work is really important because a lot of times we take really good principles and truths in scripture and we’re trying to apply them kind of like a generic band-aid. But if you don’t know what your own proclivities are, like your experience, what you’re bringing to this truth that God is giving you, it’s really hard to apply that in a generic way. And so doing that work helped me because I was able to take, for example, something someone may say to me that might I might take offense to it and then it will hinder the way I’m able to respond back to them.
Jada (23:50.156)
Like it just becomes a snowball. You said something to me that kind of hurt my feelings. And so I can’t really love you well means I’m either going to give a snippy response or no response or something that’s probably less than what it should be. And then that affects our relationship for however long until we have a checkpoint and talk about it.
Becoming aware of how much I value achieving or being right or being involved in decision making, like these things that are true about Jada, helps me to, for example, hear a message or receive something from somebody and instead of getting offended, and then over time it gets faster the more you practice it. In a moment, the Lord can be like, stop, that’s not about you. They’re not trying to exclude you. They had to make a fast decision. They’re telling you about it afterward. Move on, let it go.
Like in a couple of seconds, opening up that moment before I respond to the Holy Spirit, man, that has saved me weeks and months of some tension and some relationship that’s unnecessary. And so then the crazy thing is once I’m able to not be offended by something, I’m just giving an example, shows up in a million ways.
Jada
Then what happens next week when that same person, God puts them on my heart and says, I need you to pray for that person. You don’t know what’s going on in their life, but sometimes the Lord will put a person on your heart or you see them somewhere and you can give them now a genuine word of encouragement or, how are you doing? Because now I’m not harboring what hurt my feelings seven days ago. You see what I’m saying? Like that one little thing then affects every other thing. And God is like, there’s things you can’t do on my behalf because you’re harboring things or you’re bothered by something or you are offended by something. And so the quicker you can let those things go and really rest in my love, then the sooner you can offer the love that I want you to give. It just becomes this cycle that I think I’ve really been surprised at how much one little thing can affect the way we engage for really long periods of time with people. You’re the counselor, Julie, you’re supposed to tell me.
Juli (26:02.318)
I do know what you’re saying. No, I do know what you’re saying and I can resonate with it. I have experienced that supernaturally over time. You know, I think you start with wanting to try to love and we usually try in our own strength of, okay, I’m not going to say that thing I so want to say or I’m going to try to forgive this person. And, you know, I think where transformation really happens is we realize this can’t be done by trying. It has to be done by abiding in.
Asking the Holy Spirit to love through us. Yes, then it becomes this ongoing conversation Like you just kind of told us like the Holy Spirit is gonna speak and say, know, like trust me with this or you know, him room or Don’t gossip about her. Yeah.
Jada
Yeah, it’s very serious. I was laughing because a week ago my husband sent me a text message. He’s a very direct person. He speaks in bullets. He’s not a hey how’s your day. He’s always been that way. In every marriage you you have some tender subjects where you’re like yeah we have to tread lightly around this one. He said something to me I forgot even what it was but it made me feel I remember like I wasn’t being considered and that’s important to me. Like if we’re doing something that affects the house or affects us as a family I want to be involved in the decision making.
That is a good thing, but I probably have more of a need for it just because of how I’m wired. I think I have lots to contribute, little bit of his pride, a little bit of how I grew up, you know? And so there’s probably a little bit of baggage with that. And I remember getting that message and I was surprised at how unbothered I was by it. Like it surprised me because I said this same message a year ago, I would have been like, I can’t believe you didn’t call me first. And what kind of that?
Jada (27:55.148)
I mean, it would have been a whole thing which then would have affected, obviously, our engagement the rest of that day or the next couple of days. And I remember looking at that message going, you know what, God, you really are good. This does not bother me. And the Lord was like, yeah, you know, He’s just trying to ask you a question. answer the question. He’s not trying to attack your intelligence. He’s just saying, here’s what He did. And it sounds silly, but when we don’t process that a little bit and invite the Holy Spirit to do that, we make a judgment or an internal agreement that this is what they mean.
You don’t even realize how many layers of offense and hurt we are now trying to navigate a relationship through because he’s still going to come home for dinner and we still have to get things done together. But now we’re not at a neutral or positive place. I’m operating from a deficit because something bothered me a few days ago, you know? And so it keeps showing up like that where God is like, it’s not even about trying to be nicer to your husband. And that’s part of it. He said, but if you just deal in a healthy way, with who he is, he don’t have to change. Because when you change, like he still send the same message is my point. It’s not because he stopped sending that kind of message. It’s because the Lord was like, why are you bothered by that? And I was like, why am I bothered by that? And then over time, you’re like, I’m not bothered by that. It’s fine. And so it’s just in those little ways.
Juli
And I think it’s recognizing like the spiritual battle in little situations like that, because what happens in my heart, and I think most of us is that kind of situation occurs. It’s innocent when it starts with the text or, you know, if you’re tired and your husband says something, your roommates have something and you feel offended. And then in the silence, you sit there and stew. And then the enemy kind of like whispers in your ear, you know, like you should stand up for yourself and I don’t know why he does that to me It’s like you jump to the worst possible conclusion of you know, like the person, know, maybe didn’t even think twice about it but now it’s become this big thing and Now you’re guarded and now you’re reacting with Defensiveness and bitterness and yeah, it’s like one little thing like a text.
Jada (30:11.726)
Absolutely I was talking to a friend the other day and she was struggling because a close friend of hers had some event in her life and she saw through social media that the close friend was with some other friends and not her, you know, and it sounds very playground, but even in our adult years, those things. Yeah, and she was really struggling because she didn’t know, should I talk to my friend about it?
Jada (30:39.906)
And, you know, I wasn’t there and I said, no, do you think your friendship is in jeopardy or do you think this was just something that was disappointing or hurtful? And I told her, said, you’ve got to decide, do you believe that there’s something that really needs to be addressed or can it be addressed in you between you and the Lord, you not feeling involved or perceiving that as rejection or whatever your thing is, that’s between you and the Lord, because now you’re not able to celebrate this big achievement with your friend because you weren’t invited to an event.
Like the friend was actually going through some, big celebratory achievement. And my friend could not even fully engage with this really big deal because she wasn’t invited. You know what I’m saying? She’s dealing with the pain of not being invited. And I said, this is how we end up not loving well, because God may want to use you to love your friend in a certain way and celebrate her and look at this thing she’s been working for for a long time. And now it’s here and you can’t do it because you got to deal with your own rejection about not being invited to something. Like that’s how it shows up.
Jada
I think the enemy is not always trying to get us to trip in huge immorality and sinful ways. Sometimes he’s like, if you just get so concerned about yourself that you can’t love well, his mission is still accomplished. Like, that friend is now missing something that God had for you to do, you know, toward her as an action of love that you’re holding back now. Like, you can’t even hear what the Lord is telling you to do because you’ve got this pain, something that you need to resolve with the Lord.
You know what I’m saying? So even in thinking about this and how God has shown me how it shows up in the smallest of things. It has really been altering for me.
Juli
Yeah, I you know, I like the example that you use partially because you kept saying there’s something there’s a pain there that you have to resolve between you and the Lord and it’s acknowledging that there is a pain. It’s not just saying, you know, get over it. This is not a big deal. It might be a big deal and it might trigger feelings of being left out and rejected and now I don’t know if I can trust this friend and that’s a real thing.
Juli (32:43.144)
And so it’s not just ignoring and know, pushing stuff down and acting, loving in spite of it. It’s letting events like that bring to the surface the prayer that you were talking about, like Lord, search me and help me to know where I need to confess, where I need healing. And so it’s being reflective of like, why did that hurt me so much? Why am I making this about me? And boy, I’ll tell you, parenting is something that will bring that out in you too, how much we make parenting about us.
Jada
That’s the truth. And even when you just said, now I can’t trust that friend, that’s so true. We take that thing that we’ve not really offered to the Lord or taken the healing journey on, and now we’ve attributed to their whole character, like a friend you’ve had for 20 years. You know what saying? Calling into trust and does this person love me? Like we magnify it because we haven’t dealt with whatever the original source of pain, the friend isn’t the source of pain.
There’s something that happened, you know, when you were seven, eight, nine, 10, 15, something. And I think that’s so interesting you said that because we do end up blowing it up as opposed to like giving it to the Lord.
Juli
Or you even think about, as you refer to what happened with COVID, and you could say the latest election or anything like that. We see friendships and churches just breaking apart because you disagree on some of these issues. And it isn’t the friend, it’s the issue evokes a fear. And you don’t know what to do that fear other than I can’t be around anybody who doesn’t think like me. you know, like to love, well, we have to get to that bedrock of, why do I feel this way? Why do I feel so angry or unsafe with somebody who voted differently than I did or who sees the culture differently than I do?
Jada (34:29.013)
That is exactly it. Yep, those are my thoughts exactly. So, yeah. I mean, it’s definitive. When Jesus says, this is the mark, this is how they’ll know you belong to me, he means that. He’s not saying how many times you attend church, how often you read your Bible. Those are great disciplines. But he’s saying that evidence is the way you love. That’s how they’ll know. Because when you forgive and everybody else is holding a grudge or when you reach out, when everybody else is withdrawing, he’s like, those illogical ways that I’m asking you to love, that’s how they’ll know what’s the deal with this person. And you’ll be able to say, it’s because Jesus loves me this way. And that’s kind of hard for us because we like behavior. We like things we can measure and check. And that love thing is very, very internal before it shows up in our external relationships.
Juli
Yeah, you know, one thing I’ve been really thinking about recently is how Jesus calls us to love different people differently. So I know you’ve done a lot of research on this in scripture, but, know, I see three broad categories of people that he calls us to love. Our neighbor, you love your neighbor as yourself. You love your enemy by not taking vengeance, by doing good to them, even though they’ve done harm to you.
And then you love your brothers and sisters in Christ with a unity. Even though I’m supposed to love my neighbor, it doesn’t mean that we’re going to be working towards agreement and unity. But loving the family of God is like a whole mother level of love. And I don’t know how much you’ve thought about how God’s call for us to love people is different based on those different expressions, like an enemy, somebody who has hurt you, maybe even abused you. How do you love by keeping boundaries and like yeah.
Jada (36:20.62)
Yeah, and I do talk about that a little bit. I do touch on the idea of love and enemies and even setting boundaries because I think the other thing I don’t want people to believe is that this comprehensive love is also not safe, that God is not concerned about your safety. He’s like, just love everybody, give everything of yourself to everybody. That’s not what he’s saying. You can have agape love and sacrificial love in wisdom. And sometimes there’s boundaries, physical proximity, emotional proximity that we need to set.
My challenge personally and what I want to challenge people with is, are those boundaries God-led boundaries or are they self-protected? Like, did you decide what you need to do with this person or did you ask the Lord? Because there may be a person that you don’t talk to for five years that God is still asking you to pray for, you know? So it’s a strange thing even to set the boundaries to ask God, what does that look like, you know? And then you have, to your point, all the one another’s, what we do in the body.
Juli
Yeah
Jada
Like those things are for believers, those things are written to churches. Here’s how we bear burdens, pray for each other, you know, how we cover transgressions and how we love one another, serve one another, those kinds of things. But even the call to the body of believers and even the call to love your enemies comes after you understand what it just means to love your neighbor. Like that’s so foundational that God is not impressed if you’re praying for your brother or sister at church, and you’re unkind to your coworker. So he’s like, yeah, those are supposed to be expressions of you love God, then you love your neighbor as an expression of how you love God and how God loves you. Then you’re able to love enemies and then you’re able to the nuance of the one another’s within the body. You know, it just kind of builds from there, but that foundational love is first.
Juli (38:11.572)
you think it’s sort of developmental? Like for somebody who’s like maybe convicted by this conversation is that the place to start is Lord just help me to love my neighbor well.
Jada
Yeah, I usually tell people who’s the hardest person to love.
Juli
You gotta start with the hardest. Why can’t we start with the easiest?
Jada
I know that’s what we want to do. It’s what my kids want to do. They want to like clean up the easiest thing first. I’m like, mm-mm, bathrooms first. We’re going to rub bathrooms first. So because the hardest people to love will reveal the most about you. I mean, it’s easy to my best friend, but when I’m asking God, who’s hardest for me to love? Who just rubs me wrong or who am I uncomfortable with when I’m in the room or whatever it might be.
He, to me, that gives greater opportunity for me to begin to say, God, search me. Because I’m starting from the hardest, because as I start to work through those things, it’s going to affect everybody else. If everybody else is five and under, as far as my energy that it takes to love well, if I start with my nines and my eights, then everybody’s going to benefit. So it’s not easy, but to me, it makes more sense. I’m like, just go ahead, Lord, let’s just start working through the list. What’s going on with me?
Jada (39:24.974)
Why does this person or this group of people or this news channel or this place, like why does it hit me that way? And God is gracious. He’s not gonna give you 25 things to work on. He’s too gracious. He’s gonna say, okay, let’s start here, you know? And whatever you’re learning about yourself, he already knows and he’s already loved you in full through it. So it’s a safe sharpening. It’s a safe kind of, he’s like, come on, we gonna get better day by day. And I would start with the hardest person, who’s hardest.
Juli
So I have to ask. Do you really have a list. Yeah, that you have like your nines and tens, you know, the hard people.
Jada (40:03.704)
Of people? Yes, but it’s not names. You might start with names. You have to start with what you know. It may be a name. What will happen though is you’ll start to see a pattern in the kind of people that are hard to love for you. Some people, it’s hard to love people who are unstructured. Some people, we are so structured, we need to get things done a certain way. The chaotic, free-spirited person, unless it’s our family, we’re like, I’d rather not, you know?
Some people, it’s really hard to love people who are not people-oriented. Some of us are task oriented. And the person who is like, yeah, I understand that your parent died, but also when you come back to work. Like we’re just like, that’s the most offensive thing in the world. And that doesn’t mean they don’t love you. They’re just not wired that way. They grieve quickly and they grieve differently. You know, they receive and give emotion at a different level. And for some of us, those people are hard.
You may be the opposite. You may not like the person that’s super emotional. Like it’s usually, it’ll start to show up as categories or types of people that are difficult for us to really engage with. You may start with names, but I have found that it ends up being types of people and God is like, let me tell you why this bothers you, you know? And then we can get into why that thing bothers me or why.
Juli
I totally agree with you in terms of categories of people. You there’s certain personality profiles that are hard for me to be with. But I’d also say for most of us, I think there are individuals who’ve hurt us, whether they know they’ve hurt us or they’re not aware of it. And for some people listening, like that name, that face came right to your mind. Like, I can’t let this individual, I don’t trust them. They’re not safe. What advice do you have if God is bringing something like that into your mind?
Jada (41:47.766)
Yeah, I think that can be a slower process. I think the forgiveness, once we understand what God has forgiven us from, I believe that forgiveness can happen relatively quickly, quicker than we think. But healing is different. I think you can release something and decide that person doesn’t owe you, decide that person’s not capable to do whatever. Like, only God can pay that debt, which is the true form of forgiveness, to release or send away.
And then turn over the healing process to the Lord. Like, okay, I loan somebody $1,000, they owe a debt, I just realized they’ll never pay it back, I’m not gonna get it back, I need to release that debt, fine, I’m not waiting on it anymore, but now I need to process how that’s gonna impact me for however long, being $1,000 short. You know what I’m saying? You still have to deal with the reality that there was something that was taken. And so I think those two processes don’t have to be the same. Like God can give us the ability to release and forgive and then we can maybe sit a little longer with that healing process, because there’s usually more to really think through. And I would encourage people, what I’ve done is invited God to show me how to navigate this. And usually for me, he has started with the forgiveness piece of Jada, you need to stop expecting. That person’s not going to wake up one day and explain their behavior. They’re not going to bring you an apology. And if they do, it’s not going to be as satisfying as you think it is.
You need to not expect that debt anymore. And now let’s talk about the deficit they’ve created in you. Like, what did that do to you? And then he can begin to heal that, you know, without the burden of me still expecting something from them. Like to me, you have to let the person off the hook. That doesn’t mean that you agree. That just means that you’re letting God deal with that because the healing process gets unhealthy to me when it’s tied to a need I still have from this other person to come and try to right their wrong.
It’s not gonna happen. And they can’t do it. It’s not even possible. Once you put the nail in the fence, it doesn’t matter if you come take the nail out.
Juli (43:49.774)
No, you’re right. And you talk about, I mean, you use the example of $1,000, but you know, because that’s tangible, but the things that often are the most hurtful are intangible things. And I love the way you explain that forgiveness actually can be relatively quick, but the process of the healing and walking that out can take years. So I love the challenge of whose hardest for you to love. I’m also going to throw an additional challenge that I think for me sometimes is even more challenging is who’s closest to you.
Jada
I knew you were gonna say that. Closest to us get it rough sometimes.
Juli
How’d you know that? They do. Yeah. I mean, it’s like, like, wouldn’t say my husband is the hardest to love or my kids, like, you know, I love them, but you know, like there’s a challenge of, I’ve shared this very publicly before in speaking or writing, but like even in the sexual area of marriage to love my husband, you know, like, I can love him in these other areas really well. But I mean, I’m not so invested in that one. And there’ve been times in my walk with the Lord where he’s like, you want to love your neighbor, like your closest neighbor are the people that you see every day that you live with, that you take for granted. And that’s like another level of challenge of what it really means to love well.
Jada (45:11.992)
It sure is because our guard is down. We’re not as intentional. And you know, my family gets end of day Jada. You know, they don’t get bright morning, 8 a.m., 11 a.m. Jada. They get end of day. I’m tired. I’ve given everything to everybody else. Let’s just eat and go to bed, you know. So, and that’s of course when they’re going to need something, when I have the least to give. And so then I’m really, I have to be super dependent on the spirit to be like, need you to give through me what I really don’t have or what I don’t feel like giving or whatever, but you’re right. The people closest to us, God bless them.
Juli
Amen. That honestly is the biggest evidence of God’s work in my life that I can see is the ways that he’s empowered me over the years to love my husband differently, my kids differently, you know, because I can’t be that good all the time. You know, like my guard gets let down, but when the Holy Spirit is, you know, the one that is working through me, it’s like, I can tell that difference. So, hey, I love talking to you. This was super fun.
Jada
I could talk to you forever and I cannot wait to have you back to the women of One Community. They’re like we love Dr. Juli.
Juli
I look forward to coming back. And I think I’m going to see you a few times this year at different events. It’ll be fun to keep catching up. And we’ll have to do this again on Java with Juli as well. So thank you.
