Thwarted Again!

Have you ever noticed how some of our most "profound" thoughts that just explain everything, would bring world peace, or even just make our lives a whole lot easier...  are often in direct contradiction to God's Word?  I have experienced time and time again that some of "my best thoughts" are shot down immediately by the turn of a page (probably why it's so important to be reading our Bibles consistently), leaving me feeling first like a gi-normous idiot, and then almost instantly grateful that it's God in charge and not me!

So I had been thinking that loving people is just probably not that good of an idea.  I dunno... It really just causes all kinds of unpleasantness...  increases vulnerability (enabling one to be hurt), accountability (again, enabling one to be hurt), also increases the likelihood of one being hurt.  Yes, I do realize there is a sort of underlying foundation to my genius line of thought...  I guess I was thinking that if I could just manage to not care, to be one of those magnificently stoic individuals who is just super calm, cool and collected... always objective and rational...  There would be no way of getting hurt right?  What a fabulous idea!  Why didn't God think of that, right?

I came across this passage.  And I know it's a popular one and we have a tendency to just fly through it, conjuring up feelings of fluffy clouds and fuzzy bunnies.  But seriously just take a minute or two to read it and let it sink in.

1 Corinthians 13

The Way of Love

 ¹ If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. ²If 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. ^3-7If 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. ^8-10Love 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.
 ¹¹When 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.
 ¹²We 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!
 ¹³But 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.

Yeah...  I'm not doing so awesomely at some of those...  I really need to stay in His Word to make His thoughts my thoughts.  And I need to practice relying on the Holy Spirit instead of on my own understanding.  Obviously that's not working out too well for me.  It's a pretty much constant, day by day thing...  It's not like you just "get it" and then never have to try again.  Our brains are not naturally submissive to Wisdom (at least mine isn't!)  I am thankful for Grace today.  And that it's never too late to start over.  Glad that we have such a relational God.  And that He models for us that "extravagant love."