Prior Editions
February 9,
2006
Be
My Valentine!
Twenty two years ago this week, Carol and I were on our
first date. We were college students just beginning to wrestle with new
responsibilities and new opportunities. I wish I could say that 2/7/1984
was the perfect evening, but I can't. That's a story for another
day. I can say in all honesty that I knew I was with someone
special.
I can also say with certainty that I had a lot to learn about
love. I never gave much thought to God's purpose for love. I just
knew it when I "felt it." I still have a lot to learn about love,
but I have learned that it goes far beyond feelings and emotion. It
strikes to the core of what Jesus meant when he talked about commitment,
servanthood, and selflessness.
In that Spirit, and in honor of my wife
(who is my example of commitment and servanthood), I share with you this
paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13.
Godspeed,
Pastor John
LOVE: A PARAPHRASE OF 1 CORINTHIANS 13
By David Sanford
If I talk a lot about God and the
Bible and the Church, but I fail to ask about your needs and then help you, I'm
simply making a lot of empty religious noise.
If I graduate from
theological seminary and know all the answers to questions you'll never even
think of asking, and if I have all the degrees to prove it and if I say I
believe in God with all my heart, and soul and strength, and claim to have
incredible answers to my prayers to show it, but I fail to take the time to find
out where you're at and what makes you laugh and why you cry, I'm
nothing.
If I sell an extra car and some of my books to raise money for
some poor starving kids somewhere, and if I give my life for God's service and
burn out after pouring everything I have into the work, but do it all without
ever once thinking about the people, the real hurting people-the moms and dads
and sons and daughters and orphans and widows and the lonely and hurting-if I
pour my life into the Kingdom but forget to make it relevant to those here on
earth, my energy is wasted, and so is my life.
Here is what love is
like--genuine love. God's kind of love. It's patient. It can wait. It helps
others, even if they never find out who did it. Love doesn't look for greener
pastures or dream of how things could be better if I just got rid of all my
current commitments. Love doesn't boast. It doesn't try to build itself up to be
something it isn't. Love doesn't act in a loose, immoral way. It doesn't seek to
take, but it willingly gives. Love doesn't lose its cool. It doesn't turn on and
off. Love doesn't think about how bad the other person is, and certainly doesn't
think of how it could get back at someone. Love is grieved deeply (as God is)
over the evil in this world, but it rejoices over truth.
Love comes and
sits with you when you're feeling down and finds out what is wrong. It
empathizes with you and believes in you. Love knows you'll come through just as
God planned, and love sticks right beside you all the way. Love doesn't give up,
or quit, or diminish or go home. Love keeps on keeping on, even when everything
goes wrong and the feelings leave and the other person doesn't seem as special
anymore. Love succeeds 100 percent of the time. That, my friend, is what real
love is!
© 2003 David Sanford
Mid-Week
Musings
An
Occasional bulletin from Christ United Methodist Church