“The thing that matters the most is your faith expressed through love.”
Thanks to the Union Auxiliary, whose purpose is to provide support to Union University through the provisions of scholarships and service to students, Bob Goff spoke in the Grant Center on Tuesday night to challenge those in the room to reach out their hands and love those around them, as uncomfortable as it may be.
The room was filled with current students, alum, staff, community leaders and university donors as Bob Goff, New York Times best-selling author of Love Does, Honorary Consul to the Republic of Uganda, founder of Love Does- a nonprofit human rights organization, and attorney, took to the stage and made each person feel like a friend. Goff began with a practical way to engage in meaningful relationships and to love those you may encounter: have 12 conversations a day.
“What I’ve been trying to do to live into this idea of love and having authentic relationships and connections is to have 12 conversations a day, real conversations,” Goff explained. “Talk about who you are and what you are about and actually listen to the answers. If we are those kind of people, people will actually see God.”
As it says in Galatians 5, faith is expressed through the display and action of love. Goff took time to express how following God means meeting people where they are and walking alongside them to show the love of Christ. He feels that people are often too afraid to reach out their hands to those around them and instead keep them stuffed in their own pockets. Instead of falling victim to the comfortable, Goff encouraged the room to acknowledge the potential awkwardness and unknown of loving someone and to face it head on.
“If we want to look like Jesus, we’ve got to encounter people and reach out our hands,” Goff said. “Loving everyone always doesn’t start with the people that are easy, but with the people that are difficult.”
Instead of just talking the talk, Goff is walking the walk. In Uganda, over 1,000 child sacrifices are done each year by witchdoctors. Instead of fleeing from the scary, he has decided to first face the problem head on by putting a case on trial, and then has followed up this justice with love. He now visits with the witchdoctor he convicted and has led him to Jesus. Instead of turning his head to the “creepy,” he has stretched out his hand and is walking alongside him. This means that, as people of faith, they must get uncomfortable to push the boundaries of love.
According to Goff, Jesus is dazzled by people crossing oceans to love, but He is wowed when they walk across their street or office. He challenged people to step outside of their comfort zone to connect with and love others with absolutely no agenda in mind. Sophomore nursing major Addison Dunn was especially encouraged by this point.
“I felt challenged when Bob made the point that anytime love has an agenda, it is no longer love,” Dunn said. “This simple, yet profound statement encouraged me to love others with no expectations or hidden motives, and to live like Galatians 5:6. A life of faith that is expressed in love.”
“When we get uncomfortable enough, God will use this. Find someone who creeps you out and acknowledge that you’re nervous too,” Goff said. “However, when love has an agenda, it’s no longer love.”
Goff then went on to encourage those in the room to approach the people they have been avoiding and give them their very best. The right steps toward authentic love are steps towards the people you tend to avoid. Once again, the theme of outstretching your hands was reiterated.
“God uses conversations and connections to knit us together like a family,” he stated. “We will be something that everyone wants to be a part of because they see something good going on.”
This is exactly what the room felt like on Tuesday night: a family. As tables of friends, families, coworkers and colleagues broke bread together and listened to the guest speaker, laughter filled the air more often than not. Goff came onto the stage with an energy that cannot easily be compared. His laughter was intertwined into every story he told, covering topics that ranged from In-N-Out Burger, off the grid military bases and all the way to the Gospel work that is being done in the Middle East.
For students that were not able to attend the dinner, a student-only hangout session was held in Barefoots afterwards. This time, hosted by Englewood Baptist Church’s college ministry, allowed Bob and his wife, affectionately known as Sweet Maria, to sit down with current students and just talk.
“You guys are it,” Goff said. “You are the generation that is about to get out there and do everything so any chance I get to sit down with you I take.”
Once again, Goff made the room laugh and smile with stories of himself in college, but he also continued to challenge those present to love in the best possible way, whether it is in a relationship or with the person you avoid on the sidewalk walking to class. The sense of family carried over from the Grant Center as Goff and his wife sat on the couches up front, making it feel like a living room gathering.
“You all now have two new friends, me and Maria, in San Diego,” Goff said as he wrapped up the night.
Be sure to check out Goff’s newest book, Everybody Always, that hit the shelves in stores across the country on Tuesday. This book is his long-awaited follow up to his first and tells stories and lessons on how to love without inhibition, insecurity or restriction.