I guess the end of June is as good a time as any to make a 1st post for 2016!! Time is moving so quickly (while still agonizingly slowly!)...there just doesn't seem to be time (or need) for blogging. There's a few blogs i still follow...but most of you i see on fb. If anyone sees this it will be via fb!:)
I'm having a slower morning than usual - and that is a blessing. Last night, i spent some time reading I Corinthians 13 : and truly was blown away (again) by the beauty and clarity of these words. The world seems very saturated with ugliness these days - unsettled, reactive, without foundations. My world is often unsettled these days : not my heart - but circumstances in my world over which i have no directive ability. Some things I'm coping with are breaking my heart....other things have made me so blasted angry that it's not healthy! I'm learning (again) how to live in a way that focuses on priorities...so that i can maintain peace in my emotions and with my God.
I'm startled by the high level of misconduct and confusion in high places and in low places: and how blatantly bad behaviors are not just tolerated but are sometimes exalted. <<<< this is why i needed to read I Corinthians again. This is how I am called to behave, to react, to love....no matter what anyone else, anywhere else does. I'm challenged : I'm calmed : I'm encouraged....that the Holy Spirit promises to make this sort of heart possible in even the lowliest person who surrenders to the Lord. I want these words to continue to guide and change me, whatever else happens around us. (I'm including 2 versions cause i love them both so much!)
I Corinthians 13 (NKJV):
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,[a]but have not love, it profits me nothing.
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
I Corinthians 13 (the Message):
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.
If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
