Apprenticeship of Love

 "Collene, do you trust me?" The question continues to challenge me.  Sometimes, I'm not sure...

 In the same way the Spirit also comes to help us, weak as we are.  For we do not know how we ought to pray; the Spirit himself pleads with God for us in groans that words cannot express.  And God, who sees into our hearts, knows what the thought of the Spirit is; because the Spirit pleads with God on behalf of his people and in accordance with his will. 

~Romans 8:26,27

I woke up that way again this morning. What once felt like a baby elephant playing on my chest, now feels like a massive, full grown pachyderm has firmly seated himself directly over my heart.  The hours, days and months have not lightened the load and the nights are getting darker.  Initially, it was easy to turn the burden over to God.  I could fill pages and hours with very specific, heartfelt prayers.  Now, with the thick darkness and confusion of this jungle, most of the time all I can utter is "Jesus, help".

Thank God for Romans 8 this morning.  Thank God that the subject of my deepest aching burden doesn't have to depend on my faithfulness, understanding or skills.  Thank God that He pursues us, despite us, all the while inviting us to participate in His pursuit of others.  Thank God that He is using this situation to teach me a hands-on class about true love.  Pray that I graduate, would you?  Here's the syllabus:

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

 

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 Love never fails. 

But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part,  but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.  When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.  For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 

 ~1 Corinthians 13.

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