I had a fantastic time this past weekend at the annual Clergy Spouses Retreat at Lake Texoma. The Prothro Center is fabulous! Our speaker on Saturday was the Reverend Cammy Gaston. We all thoroughly enjoyed her and the message she brought to us. I wanted to share with you part of an exercise she had us do. Her message came from 1Corinthians 13:4-7, “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.”
Reverend Gaston gave us each a piece of paper with this verse printed, but left blank spots where we had to insert our own names into each blank, then we had to read them aloud to a partner. So it goes like this…
_________ is patient, ______is kind. ______is not jealous ______is not boastful ______is not proud ______is not rude. ______does not demand her/his own way. ______ is not irritable. ______keeps no record of being wronged. ______does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. ______never gives up, ______never loses faith, ______is always hopeful and ______endures through every circumstance.
My first thought when asked to do this exercise was that I couldn’t pen my name in the blanks because it didn’t feel honest to do so and secondly, when asked to read it to my partner, well, it hurt deep inside. We each had to do some soul searching. I encourage you to do this exercise and you might even consider keeping it handy to look at often as I have been doing since my return home.
As we strive to grow to become Christ like in our actions, thoughts, in our lives in general, I do believe our greatest stumbling block would be that of loving as Christ did love. Love is the single greatest expression of Christ, the mark of a true follower of Jesus; love “binds us all together in perfect harmony” (Col 3:14) Love is the principal ethical manifestation of Christian faith, the primary fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22) and one of the most important motivations for ministry. The most important thing for believers to value and seek is to become a faithfully loving person.
It is not in my nature to be hateful; I don’t carry grudges, or wish any wrong upon a person. I am a very forgiving person, knowing that I need forgiveness also. I generally find that relationships are easy for me, I like people, they like me. That makes love easy, so to speak. But don’t you know it, that there will be that one person that comes around every so often and is determined to make love hard. It is then that I find myself clinging mightily to Christ. Not such a bad thing, huh? Maybe we need those nemeses in our lives to make us stronger, to force us to cling more mightily to the cloaks of the Lord.
It’s all about choices, isn’t it? We can choose to be patient, choose to be kind, choose not to be jealous, choose not to be boastful, choose not to be proud, choose not to be rude, choose not to demand our own way, choose not to be irritable, choose not to keep record of being wronged, choose not to rejoice about injustice, choose to never give up, never lose faith, always remain hopeful and choose to endure through every circumstance.
I pray for “attitudes of choice”. May we cling mightily to His cloak, gathering comfort from His love, from our fellowship together in His Spirit. May our hearts be tender and compassionate, working together with one mind and purpose. May we not be selfish, be humble and look for the interests of another. May we have the same attitude as Christ Jesus had.
“Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. “ (Phil.2:6-11)
Amen.
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