Today I was reflecting on my fleshy humanity, vanity, and areas I've fallen short over the last few months. I thought about my past sins, both old and present.
I repented and was seeking God's face, asking him to refine and grow me on this trip.
During this time I was guided to 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter, (that gets quoted so much but doesn't seem to sink in a lot of the times). I've read it many times but until today, it hadn't really sunk in. But today, I had the brilliant idea to say, "God, let me become all these things. Help me to grow in this area, help me to choose love."
It's funny when you ask God for something how he just puts us into situations to have to embrace it, because it IS inside of us – we just usually decide to not use it.
While I was reading that chapter, I received an email from a relative of mine, in response to an email I had sent out asking friends & family to support me on this trip. This is what it said::
"Amanda, Have your tried getting a job to fund your account? That would be a good way to put money in the bank! Be safe & take me off your mailings!"
Well. Let me tell you that LOVE was not the first thing that flowed through my heart, mind, or mouth! I took a mental time out, went back and read the love chapter about 28 more times. After all, I had asked God to allow me to grow in this area, and that is exactly what he set me up for. He had me make a choice, He was training me in Godliness.
If I speak in the tongues of me and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowldege, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have & if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love doesn't envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irratible or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believe all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tounges, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I thought, spoke and reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up child like ways. For now we see in a mirror domly, but then face to face. Now I know in part then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope & love abide these three; but the greatest of these is love
I had to read over and over and over the parts about love not being arrogant, rude, irritable or resentful. typically that is my go to emotional arsenal. My new arsenal is growing, thanks to God. Isn't it funny how we read things like this, ask God for more of it, and he gives us over to situations that bring about our desperate need for the attributes we ask for. it never ceases to remind me just how PERFECT God's timing is.
So, I'm embracing love, I will be patient. kind. joyful. humble. loving. nice. gentle. self-less. peaceful. understanding. pursuer of peace. respectful.
I won't be perfect but I will do what I can to correct myself and to seek out Christ's guidance. I'll look to him as my author an perfector of my faith and ways. He is the perfect guide, the only one who can show me how to live.
