Love is Patient
I was so excited as my team finished praying for God’s direction and went out into the streets of downtown Atlanta to minister to the people we met along the way. I was sure we were going to take the city by storm and do amazing things. I was so proud of my team members as they were so brave and bold about declaring the gospel to so many people and offering to pray for them. Pretty much doing anything they could to be the hands and feet of Christ.
At the same time I was becoming rather dismayed at my own lack of courage. I felt more shy than ever out there around all those strangers. I just sort of walked around and watched what my team members did without contributing much. All I could think about was that I was hungry and wanted to find food. At the end of the day I finally got up the courage to talk to a man on a bench…well it turns out he was already a Christian and he said he would pray for me. So, needless to say I was feeling rather discouraged after my first ministry time with my team.
So I decided to talk to God about it…”Papa, are you sure you want me on this trip? Wouldn’t you rather pick someone more brave and outgoing? I mean let’s face it I was pretty much useless out there today…sometimes I’m really not sure why you love me so much.”
The response I got from Him wasn’t what I was expecting. There were two points He made:
-First of all He pointed out 1 Corinthians 13. Now I’ve read that chapter many many times and somehow the fact that love is patient never seemed to make it through my thick skull. Whenever I read that love is patient I always took it to mean that when people are annoying the heck out of you, you’re supposed to pretend that they aren’t.
He quoted it to me in the context of Mark 12:31 “Love your neighbor as yourself.” So if you’re supposed to love your neighbor as yourself, then that means that you are supposed to love yourself. And if love is patient, then that means I ought to be patient with myself. I’d never considered that I was supposed to carry out 1 Corinthians 13 in regards to myself. I always thought I was just supposed to be that way towards others.
This was a great relief to me to know that it’s ok to be patient with myself and I don’t have to run out there and save a bunch of people my first day of ministry.
-Secondly, God really wanted me to know(and I think many people misunderstand this about him) that my usefulness to Him has absolutely nothing to do with how much he loves me.
He loves me because He made me and He loves me because I have a relationship with him.
Just like any human parent doesn’t love their child based on their usefulness. That wouldn’t make sense. Children ususally aren’t at all useful to their parents, in fact, parents are constantly pouring into their children without getting much back, except some dirty diapers. But parents love their children because they are a part of them and they have a strong bond with them.
Of course God is proud when His children succeed, but He doesn’t love them any less when they fail.
So I guess those are the most important lessons I learned at training camp. God loves me no matter what and he wants me to love myself and be patient with myself.
