Love

 

 

Somewhere in time, this week, I had a conversation with my mother.  She reminded me that when I was eleven years old she made me memorize the 13^th chapter of 1^st Corinthians.  I did and my prize for memorizing the chapter was a pair of red, white and blue boots.  Not just any boots, they were knee high and they laced all the way up the front.  I wanted them because I thought they were cool.  Even at a young age, I was still concerned with fashion and I had my own sense of style.  My mother was positive those were the ugliest boots around.  Maybe they were, but I liked them.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NIV) “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

I think my mother had ulterior motives.  I used to fight with my older brother.  Maybe you can relate, I had the prefect older brother, but he used to tease me.  My mother would be in the other room and he would tease and what she heard was the blow up. She would hear the sound of me yelling at my brother or hitting him with the nearest object.  I think she thought I needed to learn a little bit more about love.  The funny part is that I loved my brother and I still do, but I would agree I didn’t show love all the time. Love is hard to show perfectly.   

Love is patient – that is one I struggle with all the time.  Can I truly love when I am never truly patient?  Love is kind – I love to tease as much as the next person, but is all my teasing kind? Love is not proud – another hard one.  I’m proud of my family, proud of my faith and proud of my country. Where is love in that?  Love is not rude – I try not to be, but when someone is rude to me, my first reaction is to be rude back.  Love is not self-seeking – giving without expecting anything in return.  Love is not easily angered and keeps no records of wrong – I am slow to anger, but slow to forgive, so I am only half right.  I could go on, but you get the idea.  As humans, we only demonstrate some of what real love is and we only demonstrate it some of the time.

God has perfect love.  He showed perfect love when he bore our sins on the cross.  Our only hope of loving perfectly is to allow God to love through us.  That’s my prayer.  Since I know that I am hopelessly flawed, I want to remove myself from the equation and allow God to love through me.   

 

Brandon Heath - Your Love Acoustic Performance: The Leaving Eden Sessions from brandon-heath on GodTube.