In today's post I wanted to discuss my daily reading, 1 Corinthians chapter 13. This text is famous and most likely you've heard it before, but as they say the Bible is the living Word of God, and as such it has something new for us each time we return to it, so let us look at this with new eyes.
Lord help us read your Word, let it not be routine, help us hear your invitation to let your Word shape us into that which you mean us to become.
1 Corinthians 13 English Standard Version (ESV)
The Way of Love
13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 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. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Footnotes:
1 Corinthians 13:3 Some manuscripts deliver up my body [to death] that I may boast
1 Corinthians 13:5 Greek irritable and does not count up wrongdoing
My Thoughts:
As I read this text I am struck by the call for love to be patient and kind and not arrogant or boastful. I am a husband and a father, and I will be the first to admit, I fall short of this call regularly.
After a long day at work I arrive home fatigued and perhaps hungry, sometimes eager for a moment alone, and then I am met with a whirlwind of requests: "dad can we wrestle?!", my baby Lumina fussing, eager for a cuddle, and my wife whom I want to have energy for conversation with. All of my three girls need me, they need my affection, attention and admiration, and what's more they deserve it, but... life overwhelms and in our weakness, I falter. Not every time, but sometimes.
I am not proud of my failures, but they come none the less.
Fortunately, by God's grace I am forgiven, and strengthened such that I can bear the burden, humble myself to repentant acknowledgement of my sin and able to seek forgiveness. It's not easy, but these moments are a gift in my opinion, why? Because of how Christ uses these to conform us in his image, in the image of love itself.
When we snap, snark and shout, we hurt those who God entrusts us over, we are to be as the fruit of the spirit says: loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful & gentle, and though we do fail, those failures are opportunities.
The Opportunity of Failure:
In failure we have a chance to teach ourselves and those who watch us something of repentance, what does it mean to pick yourself up and try again, while admitting you got it wrong before?
In failure we can act out what it means to seek forgiveness, to be a peacemaker, to humbly acknowledge our contribution, however small we may initially believe it to be. In this acknowledgement we honor our partners, family and friends as we vulnerably open ourselves up, sharing our fears, anxieties and limitations in a manner that hopefully does three things:
- admits our weakness
- acknowledges their importance
- accomplishes reconciliation
This is the gift of failure, the opportunity of our failings, that we might be brought low, so that He might made much of in our weakness. That in the moment of our failures we get another chance to say God is good, and I will honor him by loving his creation better.
This call to vulnerably, voluntarily, humbly admit our weakness is not easy, but it is the right way to live, and it does satisfy our insufficiency because make no mistake, either you admit you make mistakes, or you deny your own humanity, there is no third option.
My Prayer:
Thank you, Lord, that you outline what it means to be loving, that we would be patient, kind, gentle, that we would not boast over others, and rather cheer on their successes.
Jesus I for one fall short of this call, but I hear you inviting me into it none the less. Lord help me be more like you and burn away that which holds me back. Help me to become more the man you mean me to be each day, in a million little ways. I cannot do it alone. Thank you, God, that you hear these words and that you promise, you will be faithful to complete the good work that you started in me.
