David McElroy

I haven’t been able to quit thinking today about this picture of little Macey Gaines sitting with her father as they edited video two years ago.

I shot this picture for a magazine story about a Birmingham couple who have a very successful YouTube channel with half a million subscribers. Cullen was a software developer and his wife Katie was a psychologist. After they launched a YouTube channel just for family and friends, it mushroomed.

After Cullen lost his job in a downsizing, he dove into making the YouTube channel grow. Katie eventually got to quit her job, too — and they now make a nice living from home producing videos for their fans, who come in droves to keep up with the couple and their two children. (Their son Brooks has been born since I photographed the family.)

So why is this little girl — and this picture in particular — on my mind today?

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Nothing that Jesus taught was as difficult for human beings — then or now — as when He said, “…love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…”

Much of what Jesus taught was exactly opposite of the way of this world. Much of what He taught was at odds with what the religious leaders of His day allowed. Roughly 2,000 years later, those things are still true. Despite billions of people claiming to follow Jesus, most of us don’t exhibit the love He taught. And the religious leaders of our day still find ways to justify hating — and even killing — those we consider enemies.

I saw a casual example tonight of hate for political enemies. The details don’t matter. You’ve seen plenty of examples, so you know what I’m talking about.

We justify such things so easily — even those of us who claim to follow Jesus. It’s almost as though we believe there’s an asterisk in His teaching during the Sermon on the Mount — as though we believe there’s an exception for us in the footnotes of the page that says, “Unless your enemies are really bad people, of course.”

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You can’t live halfway between love and indifference. One or the other has to win in the end.

I’ve been thinking about this more and more lately because I continue to struggle to love in the ways I’d like to. A year ago this week, I wrote something fairly long about love in the broadest sense — and it’s something I’m still trying to come to terms with.

The natural way of this world is to ultimately experience something worse than hate. It’s for indifference, but it’s broader than that. The way of the world leads to a cold, hardened and callous heart. Hate can sometimes be part of it, but in its most extreme form, it’s indifference and a complete lack of feeling anything.

I believe we ultimately face two choices.

On one side, there is turmoil, anger, envy and judgment. Most “realistic people” — who have had their hearts hardened by disappointment in others — default to living closer to hate than to love, but ultimately they settle into a cold indifference.

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