Love is rejoicing in truth

 This week's board was Rejoicing in Truth!

   Perspicacious: Not sure how to explain this one, but one morning while I was spending some time in the quiet this word popped in my head. Clear as a bell. I didn't have any idea what it meant so I decided to look it up. Here's the definition:

 I guess the definition that stuck out to me was 2: Having keen vision. Seemed to relate to Love rejoicing in Truth! So there it is, on the board. Take it as you will. I'm not really sure what to do with it.

I don't feel like Truth is something we master through intellect and our own powers. I feel like the Spirit gives us perspicacity of a different kind. It is keen spiritual vision, understanding, insight that has nothing to do with my theological prowess (of which I have very little, but a lot more when compared with the global culture.) There's no way that truth is only available, perspicacity is only available to privileged first-world higher ed cultures. Truth must be something else. Truth must be discernible in another way. A way that is accessible to every single human being.

Hm, well that's all I've got on that for now. What do you think? What makes truth accessible to all?

   
   Junia is not alone!: I want to recommend a little e-book I read this week. Junia is not Alone by Scot McKnight. It only took me maybe half an hour to read, but it was great. Junia is a woman in the New Testament who was an apostle. Didn't know that? Well, this book tells you why. The truth about Junia getting lost in translation...on purpose. But she's there!

Honestly, I'm going through a lonely time right now. I spend a lot of time by myself these days and I've never really had a time in my life where that was the case. The title alone of this book was a truth I needed to hear. I know I'm not alone. I am thankful for the beautiful people around me that are there for me and care about me, and are God's voice to me in lonely times. I do rejoice!

Well, here's the new board:

No record of wrongs

So I've been a little sketchy the past couple of weeks on doing this series on time. So here's a catch-up post.
Oddly enough, "Love is not Easily Angered" got lost in the shuffle. We had the board, we looked at it all week, but nothing really came of it. I'm assuming that's okay.
And so, this week, I bring you

Love is No Record of Wrongs:

 Micah 7:18-20: "Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. You will be faithful to Jacob and show love to Abraham, as you pledged on oath to our ancestors in days long ago"


This week:

Love is not self-seeking

Here I am Lord; All I am Lord: This is Gungor's Every Breath. This was an important song for us this week. It's a song of surrender and dying to self. And it is beautiful and hopeful and wonderful! Love is not self-seeking, Love is sacrifice and surrender of self. Placing our will on the alter. Love is learning to live for something beyond our selves.

Love the one in front of you: This was a key phrase from a documentary we watched this week about   Heidi Baker. The documentary is called Mama Heidi and is on Netflix streaming. I highly recommend it! Talk about walking in selfless love!

OC 1/23, 1/24: My Utmost for His Highest continues to be a very important part of our spiritual journey and this week the readings for these two days were particularly poignant.
transformed by beholding speaks of the necessity of living by beholding God. Nothing else is as important. Nothing else comes close to what it is to live out a life from the place of beholding and reflecting Christ. Love is not self-seeking. Seek Love.
God's overpowering purpose spoke to the same abandoning of self for the sake of Christ. I'll let you read them if you care to. I can't say it better than Ozzie (this is what we affectionately call him) anyway.

Love is not self-seeking. Love trusts that in dying there is life.

Love is not rude.

Well, it is not Sunday, but here it is. I struggle with whether or not to write this post because I have felt pretty strongly that I let things like "stats" go to my head way too quickly. I desire to "be somebody" way too much, and honestly, blog stats are awful for this persistent vice of mine. So I felt that I was supposed to stay away from blogging, facebook and twitter for a week.

Hence, my struggle with posting today. My solution? I will schedule this post to publish on Wednesday. One week since I felt God say to me, hide in me.

The biggest thing I notice happening is how my writing in influenced when I think people are reading it...or when I want people to read it. This is not honest writing for me. This is not how I want to write. There are other fabulous bloggers and brilliant minds out there that I am so grateful to read! That's not what I need to be trying to attain. I can see that very clearly because of how sneakily and easily it takes hold in my heart. It's not good for me, it's not good for intimacy with Jesus. And that's all that matters to me. I will struggle to be obedient as He shows me how to listen, follow, and be made new.

Thanks for reading. Now, on to the post!

***

Love is not rude.

So here's the chalkboard after this week:

Gentleness and self control: This came out of reading the little book I shared in the last post. It is hard not to quickly react to things in daily life, in relationships. And yet, this is love. Love is not rude, but it is gentle and self controlled. I had several opportunities (especially in my marriage!) to practice choosing gentleness and self control this week. I noticed it when driving too. Or at the store. At house church. What does it look like to approach every interaction with gentleness and self control? Allowing a still space before reacting to others, opening up an opportunity to listen to His Spirit. Even in the checkout line. Even when husband says that one thing that hits all the wrong buttons.
Rudeness incapacitates the Spirit. Or truncates it. I would prefer to give Spirit every opportunity I can.

The Little Way: The easiest way to share this one is to go to the source. I read Richard Beck's blog daily (it is one of my favorites) and this week he's been sharing with his readers thoughts on Saint Therese and her Little Way. I can't recommend reading these posts enough. They are very challenging!

There's another aspect of this week that this theme "love is not rude" showed up as well. It was in a very interesting conversation with a friend. We were talking about listening and responding to the Spirit in everything, pursuing being Spirit led in every facet of life, and he's got some of the most interesting stories.
But without going into all that, I was struck by this: to walk in the Spirit sometimes means defying social rules and etiquette. And yet, love is not rude. Will I follow the Spirit if I hear "say no". If I hear "time to go". Or if Spirit says "wait before you respond" defying the socially acceptable time frame for a response or invitation. Or will I worry about other people being offended.
Will I worry that I'm not posting this on Sunday like I promised? Or will I remain obedient to what I heard: wait.

Walking in love does not mean following all of the social rules and etiquette. God and society are two different standards of how to conduct ourselves, and they do not always align. But God's way is always in Love.

And now, I'll leave you with the new board for this week.

The Greatest Thing in the World

I think it is no coincidence when themes begin to happen in life. So, understand that for me this was no coincidence that today I was reminded that there was a tiny antique book tucked decoratively into one of my bookshelves. I had never read it, my mom had given it to my husband actually about four or five years ago.

And today for some odd reason, it came to mind. So I read it on my lunch break and I laughed out loud when I opened the cover to read 1 Corinthians 13.

These little themes happen so often now I feel like it shouldn't keep surprising me, but it does. Because it is such a joy to notice the small easily dismissed details that are woven together by the Spirit to grow us if we pay attention. Or not. Maybe the growing still happens, there is just so much joy and delight in being brought into awareness of these things happening.

So I read a little book, a sermon from the 1890's, by Henry Drummond, titled "The Greatest Thing in the World". Inside, there are 80 tiny pages on Love. Some pieces of it I loved so much I thought I'd share them here.

Love. The greatest thing in the world. According to a 1890's Scottish evangelist and missionary.

I kind of love that this little guy had a burst of popularity and was forgotten, and then 120 years later the little book is on my shelf and the Spirit nudged. I read his little book and God used his words to speak to my spirit in a season of learning about Love.

The Way of Love.

So something that my husband and I have been doing for the past six weeks is looking at 1 Corinthians 13, you know it, the Way of Love.
I don't know why I haven't thought about blogging it, but we'll just pick up where we are at currently. It's been really great to take this passage one descriptor at a time, one week at a time.

Every Sunday we write the next one on the chalkboard in our living room, and then throughout the week we write things that we've heard, verses we've read, songs, you name it, on the board. At the end of the week it's been really uplifting to read all we've written and then erase it, and start on the next one.

We're on week six of this experiment. So we've looked at Love being
Patient
Kind
Not envious
Not boastful
Not arrogant

Today we wrote a new word on the board:

I think that on Sundays I will share the board in a post and introduce the next one.We'll see what ends up on the board this week!

  And now I will show you a still more excellent way. 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. ² 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. ³ 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.

 ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 ⁸ Love never fails.