Love is not touchy1
Corinthians 13:5. JB Philips translation
It is not easily angered – NIV
Is not provoked – NKJV and NASB
It is not irritable – NLT
Love is not touchy. -JB Philips translation (I really like this verse. Paints a good picture of someone who is testy, just set off by the littlest things)
Phil Comer from Solid Rock church did a great talk on 1
Corinthians 13 called AGAPE. I highly recommend listening to it.
He points out that NIV makes the point weaker when he says
love is not easily angered. He says that the translation should more say it is
never angered…but that doesn’t quite capsulate it either.
Phil says that love isn’t sharp. It doesn’t stab people in
the back. Not ready to pounce on people when they offend us.
when you are showing someone love you instead, you are quick to say “I
forgive you”.
Wow, convicting. I could sit here and say, I am pretty good
at that some of the time, but that is definitely not the case all of the time.
When I am tired, hungry or just down and out, this becomes very difficult for
me. Those close to me…and some not so close…know that I can become
irritable, provoked, upset, TOUCHY. Do we all struggle with this sometimes?
Most of us, yes. There are only a few people I have met who have such amazing
patience and grace for people…not sure how they do it. But no matter how
tired, frustrated or down I am, it is not excuse to be testy, jump down
anyone’s throat if they don’t do or say something that I view is the right way
to do or say something.
(about 5 hours), to do a 10K walk to raise support and awareness for children
in China with disabilities. On the way up we got caught in pretty bad traffic
and I managed to make the truck behind me very angry when I had to stop to try
to get around a broken tail light shattered in my lane. Apparently me stopping
really angered the lady in the truck. She honked and got within inches of my
back bumper. I got around it but the lady would not back up. I did the typical
road rage thing and tapped my breaks to tell her to back off. Well, clearly
that didn’t help. For the next ten minutes she put her brights on and road so
close behind me that Hanna and I could not get down the license number in case
she ended up hitting me…I mean, she was close! During the ten minutes Hanna
and I honestly felt bad for her and wondered why she was so angry. I made the
error of tapping my breaks to provoke her and did feel bad. Eventually she went
around us and moved on, but that stuck with me. I don’t want to be angered or
provoked, I want to show love.
This week, instead of getting testy, I want to love people
in return. To be willing to die to myself and instead of focusing on how I was
hurt, focusing on how I just simply want to love the person. I don’t know what
else is going on in that person’s life that could cause them to say or do that
thing to me. Maybe the lady in the car just had the worst day of her life and
she was taking it out on me…maybe not…but I don’t know. What I know is that
me getting angry back is not going to solve anything. Instead, I want to show
love.
