Is this love?

My morning meditation had me in I Corinthians today. Any student of the Bible will recognize this passage tells us much about love.

While I was reading the scripture, I reflected to a conversation I had with a friend earlier this week. She was sharing a story she heard over the lunch table at work from one of her friends. This woman was relaying her frustration in dealing with her family's apparent refusal to acknowledge her work for them. Evidently she is upset over their ability to keep things tidy and help her maintain the home. She has employed many methods to get them to help. She was sharing with the lunch crowd that she felt the effort she put forth was a gift of love for her family and she thought it was not being appreciated. She went on to say how much it hurt to have her love gift ignored.

As I was listening to the whole story one thought kept running through my brain. She obviously doesn't understand what love is. If you are truly expressing love you do so for the sheer joy of giving of yourself to another. The gift is it's own reward. That doesn't mean that you don't enjoy it when you get a positive reward. Everybody likes a pat on the back. It just shouldn't be the motivator for loving.

True love cares more for others than self, is pleased to bring others pleasure, is satisfied by meeting someone else's need.

The most distressing part of this whole story is the fact this woman works at a local church. Church is the place to learn the most about love. Accepting God's love for me causes me to share it with others. I am convinced if you allow God to fill you with His love you have no choice in sharing. You will be filled to overflowing and love should spill out of you onto everyone you encounter. The verses below are often quoted as being a description of the virtues of love. I don't think that is quite right. I find it to be a guide for expressing love. Notice how many of the identifiers of love contain verbs. Verbs connote action.

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.

I Corinthians 13 4-7
The Message

Later in the chapter we are told that we and our knowledge of God is incomplete but to hold on until we can be made Complete in Him.

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.

I Corinthians 13:13
The Message

Seeking God's help to love as extravagantly as I can
-jene'

Timing is everything

...or is it. My time this week seems to have gotten away from me. I accomplished some of my goals but others have fallen by the wayside. Several people needed me and my choice was to be there for them and to let go of my to do list. You might think this means I have changing priorities but really this isn't so. Goals are good, plans are necessary, but a soul needing love takes precedence over all. For when it comes time to total up my life's acheivements I'd rather list people helped than tasks completed.

One young girl I have been mentoring needed a face in the audience this week. She was so glad to see me and asked how I had found time to get to her school program. I told her that goals are important but friends are more so.

A friend has been blessed with a new job she is enjoying, but needed someone to cover her shift on her old job to make it happen. So a day off gets offered up to Jesus to help her out.

In both cases I feel the choice I made was the right one. My niece and I having been trading notes on facebook about what it means to show the love of Jesus to others. I want her to know that treating others needs as greater than your own is one way to do so. It's easy to talk about love, but hard to do.

Tiredly,

jene'

Seeing Jesus

This fall we had a sermon series on "Seeing Jesus". It has been very illuminating and given me much to think about and put into practice. This week I had an opportunity to put word to action.

I am moved into the new place but more boxes are packed than not. I have met several of the neighbors and twice I have had the chance to share the blessings God extended during the move. Two ladies in the laundry asked me how I was settling in while I was loading and folding clothes from the dryer. I laughed and said that God was good as things went fairly well considering I was profoundly ill on the day of the move. They asked me what I meant and I was able to share how even when things were going wrong in life I could count on God to see me through.

One lady named Gloria was intrigued and kept asking question after question. We spent about half an hour in the laundry room long after all our clothes were dry. She wanted to know how I could laugh about what must have been an awful day. I explained that knowing Jesus means knowing that all will work out for my good even when I can't see how it will. After we had chatted a while longer I told her I would love to tell her more of God's goodness to me. When we parted she said she might like to hear more another time.

To understand why this is really a big cause for rejoicing I'll have to share a bit of the back story with you.

Back in the summer I started looking for a new place to live as both my roommate and myself were unhappy will the level of service or rather the lack of service we were receiving at our old home. The management had put on all new staff and promised us that things would be better. We had decided to give them a second chance and made arrangements to move into another property they owned down the street. Just over a month before we were to move, a rainstorm caused massive flooding in our kitchen. They maintenance people kept saying they were coming but never showed up. This we took as a sign that is was time to look for another location. Thankfully we had not yet signed a new lease.

I found our current home on-line. I was checking it out because a friend had lived her several years ago and had enjoyed it. We both liked the floorplan and all the extra space. The rates were good and the staff seemed helpful and personable. The only drawback was the dryer would need to be gas and mine was electric. We decided to move and use alternative methods to dry the laundry until we could afford a dryer.

Because I wanted to do several loads, I washed them in the apartment and then walked the wet clothes to the dryer in one of the four laundry rooms on-site. If I had not been willing to let go of the dryer I would have never met Gloria and Marie.

While you may not think this is a big deal to me it is. We can never know when we will be the one to reflect the light of Jesus to others. When it happens you may be the only chance that person has to "see Jesus".

Hoping others see Jesus in me,

jene'