LOVE. All you need is love, right? HE has taken me back to the passage in 1 Corinthians 13 that I have not paid much attention to in awhile. I generally associate this passage with valentines day, wedding ceremonies, and relationships. Well, HE applied it to my life and revealed how still...even after all HE has purged me of and blessed me with...I still do not love! Why am I so slow...don't answer that!
How does HE teach me this lesson yet again? Through a week of me being irritated with everything that is Colombia and my life right now. And you know that I had believed the lie and convinced myself that I was justified in all of my irritations. That was until something irritated me, I was sharing it (not with HIM...oh no, with a friend who can do nothing about it or my ugly heart!). As I was sharing another friend walks up and simply says...love endures all things. Love bears all things.
BAM...that blow penetrated all the way through my hard, ugly, evil heart! Really, DAD...I am still here...not loving? So I go home and read this passage...a passage that most of us have heard a thousand times.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boas; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
And there I sit. Everything that HE has shown me HE wants to do in Palenque will be nothing if I do not love. Me being irritated was really me not loving like HE does. The truth is, I don't know how to love like HE does. I mean who, honestly, can say that they love like HIM? None of us in light of the Holy Creator of the Universe can say that they love like HE does...I mean HE sent HIS Son to drink the cup of His Wrath all for His Glory and because He loves you and I. Talk about sacrificial love, do I even come close?
So here I am, remembering what HE did for me and in light of that...nothing is really irritating! Oh that I could begin to love like HE does, please ask that for me over the next couple of months! I want people to come to know HIM, I want people to feel His steadfast love that is new every morning, and I want His Name to be glorified through my life.
How does HE teach me this lesson yet again? Through a week of me being irritated with everything that is Colombia and my life right now. And you know that I had believed the lie and convinced myself that I was justified in all of my irritations. That was until something irritated me, I was sharing it (not with HIM...oh no, with a friend who can do nothing about it or my ugly heart!). As I was sharing another friend walks up and simply says...love endures all things. Love bears all things.
BAM...that blow penetrated all the way through my hard, ugly, evil heart! Really, DAD...I am still here...not loving? So I go home and read this passage...a passage that most of us have heard a thousand times.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boas; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
And there I sit. Everything that HE has shown me HE wants to do in Palenque will be nothing if I do not love. Me being irritated was really me not loving like HE does. The truth is, I don't know how to love like HE does. I mean who, honestly, can say that they love like HIM? None of us in light of the Holy Creator of the Universe can say that they love like HE does...I mean HE sent HIS Son to drink the cup of His Wrath all for His Glory and because He loves you and I. Talk about sacrificial love, do I even come close?
So here I am, remembering what HE did for me and in light of that...nothing is really irritating! Oh that I could begin to love like HE does, please ask that for me over the next couple of months! I want people to come to know HIM, I want people to feel His steadfast love that is new every morning, and I want His Name to be glorified through my life.
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