Meditate


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The tension between siblings can be challenging at times. I feel like I spend alot of time playing referee and monitoring how the kids treat each other. I'm trying to move from forcing apologies, dictating how they act, etc. into more of a coaching/mentoring style. Recently, they had a bit of trouble sitting next to each other in church (seriously) so when we got home I had a gentle talk with them about God's call to love each other and then I gave them the assignment of writing out I Corinthians 13. I made sure they knew this was not a punishment, but more of a call to meditate on what God's Word has to say on the subject. And then I sat down with them (after I took the picture, of course) and wrote it out alongside them.

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.

If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

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 easily irritated, 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.

Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever!

Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! 

But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 

Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.

All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

Comments

Rebecca H. said…
Love it. They will remember this forever, and it will come up in their hearts when they are tempted to be nasty with each other.
What a great reminder. I need this these days. We're ALL struggling to be nice to each other with the stress of all the new schedules. I think I may write this out as well. (And love the photo. Great capture!)

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