Love Hopes All Things

1 Corinthians 13:7(Talking about love)

bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love hopes all things, and that’s where I start tonight. Well sort of, that’s what I want you to keep in mind tonight. But where I start is a little about me in the form of a classic question. You see I want to talk about hope, and that made me think of the whole glass half empty VS. glass half full scenario, but I honestly don’t know how I answer that question and its more than just a glass with water in it. The truth is I overanalyze probably 97.8% of my world, okay, yes I just pulled that number out on nowhere because I liked the way it sounded but I think you get the point. I’m analytical to a fault, so I can’t say “oh yeah, that glass is half full” and call myself an optimist or “no way its half empty” and acknowledge my pessimistic tendencies, because the truth is my analytical nature makes me much more of a realist, and can I have half a glass of water please. So as far as optimistic vs pessimistic goes I’m a pessimistic optimist or perhaps an optimistic pessimist if you prefer.

But back to love and hope, and you see this story starts in a place that may seem far from both those words. You may or may not remember I wrote on here a few months ago about the battles I’ve fought with depression; my lazy do nothing modes where my bed is my best friend and I just don’t know how to be happy or interested in the everyday happenings of this story we call life. Then last week as I was discussing past seasons in my life where depression reigned hard I was asked a question that shined a new light on this battle “have you ever thought it would be easier not to live?” and my answer has always been, no, and that’s the light.

Because as it all comes back to the way I see the world I’ve been abundantly blessed, to where even when I fall crashing down into one of those modes there still lies in my spirit a constant, persistent yet often quiet, hope. Some days as I’ve said before that hope may rest simply in the next time I get to rest but somehow it always remains, and more often than not its actually quite a bit stronger than you would expect from someone with a melancholy personality like me, because even when I can’t see it I know there is beauty in the world and even when I don’t get what I want I know God is faithful, so today may have been the worst day ever, but my eyes are on God and He knows the plans He has for me, plans filled with hope.

Philippians 4:8

Finally, brethren, whatever things are true,

whatever things are noble, whatever things are just,

whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely,

whatever things are of good report,

if there is any virtue and if there is anything

praiseworthy--meditate on these things.

So I guess in the end being in a relationship with God makes me more of an optimistic realist.

Love hopes all things

Just Trust Me

There are so many I want too’s in my life, but it seems as if I don’t really want them enough until moments like this; moments when work was on the verge of awful because you lost your patience and the only thing you seem to have going on in your life is a season of waiting, and a list. I want to work out, I want to play the guitar, I want to cook and bake and take care of a home, weird yes I actually want to clean but because its mine to take care of. I want to run, I want to sing, I want to write. I want to pray and worship with my whole heart, I want to be bold enough to speak my heart and loving enough to do it gracefully, I want to be joyful, live life with purpose and passion, and appreciate what God has done and is doing in every moment that crosses my path. I want to fall madly and passionately in love with the Creator of the world, His Son Jesus (my Savior) and the Holy Spirit; My God.

 

You see when it comes right down to it, I frequently question what it is I want to do with my life, I convince myself that my passions are weak and that I’m lost, that I don’t know what it is that I want. But the truth is, that that list up there is only the beginning of what God sees for me and if I’m lost its because I’m not paying attention or I’m being impatient and can’t see what right in front of my face. Because sometimes when it seems like God isn’t telling you what to do its because what He’s really saying is, “wait here, open your eyes and be faithful with what you see right in front of you, the rest of this stuff that you want is tomorrow, and its not time for that yet so don’t worry, just trust Me.”

Suffers Long or Longsuffering

Today I reached a breaking point; of stress or emotional exhaustion or I don’t even know what except that I broke, it was one of those I can’t do this anymore I think I’ll just sit on my bed a cry moments, so as I prayed/cried I was thinking about love and how all I really want to do I walk in God’s love, be filled to overflowing and constantly giving it out to the people around me, but how, for at least the past few weeks I’ve been continually failing that task.

 

It was in that moment I felt the need to read 1 Corinthians 13, after doing so I decided that I wanted to write about almost everything in the chapter but its too much for one blog and one night so, I’m gonna take it one day at a time.

 

So for today, what stuck out to me was this; one line from verse 4 “Love suffers long and is kind;” I decided to look this up in my concordance because I was thinking that love suffers long was longsuffering and I wanted to know what it said about longsuffering, but what I found was even cooler. You see what I found out was that suffers long and longsuffering are actually two different Greek words; they have the same root and mean pretty much the same thing, in fact the only real difference I could see between the two was the way they were being used, but that is the really cool part, the first word makrothymeō suffers long is used in the being form like to be patient, the second word makrothymia longsuffering is used in the having form simply something you can posses like patience. And I love that this verse uses the being form.

 

After discovering all this really neat info I decided to read the verse again and found one more really awesome insight if you will. Or at least it was a wow discovery to me; because I realized that most of the time while reading this verse I was saying it wrong. Usually when I read it I would say “love is patient, love is kind” but that’s not how it goes at all what it says is love is patient and kind or as my version says love suffers long and is kind, you get it? If not, well that’s okay, what I saw today is that kind is a description of the way that love suffers. Just think about that. Goodnight.