Love Is Not Smart

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes,
always perseveres.


Reading this is like taking a trip down a path. It is sunny, but the trees shade your path. The birds are singing, you are smiling, all is right with the world. La-de-da-de-da! Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast. On and on, good words, honorable words, true words. But you get to verse 7 and it is like you are hitting some rocking road. Love ALWAYS protects, ALWAYS trusts, ALWAYS hopes, ALWAYS perseveres???? Wait a minute!! What if the object is not worth my protection? What if the person is not trustworthy? What if the situation is hopeless? What if every ounce of my being is screaming for resolution, but none is found??? The birds have stopped singing, the clouds are forming, and the world is suddenly not right at all.


Love is not very smart if it puts itself out there to be abused. It is not very savvy if it puts all its eggs in one basket just to see them dropped and broken. It is surely not wise if it hopes in someone who is a hopeless cause. Surely it cannot go on when there is nothing and no one to go on with.

But you see, God is just that. If there was a picture next to love it would by God or the physical incarnation of him, Christ our Lord. God always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Okay, I am feeling better now. He has the shoulders to bear under that. He is able to do all those superhuman things.

But my teeter totter has not finished rocking. If my prayer is to grow into His likeness, and it is, then this is me too. Not the perfect form of Love, but shouldn’t I have the ever increasing desire to be all this? How do I do that? I am in a pickle. There are folks in my life that I cannot trust, they have hurt me. There are folks so vulnerable, I do not have enough energy or resources within me to protect them. There are things going on in my life that are trying to snuff out the candle of hope burning in me. And, God knows (literally) that my perseverance tank is running mighty low. So how do I do it?

Is it that in every human being there is a spark of the divine? No matter if they have acknowledged it, no matter if they have denied it. And the love of me, as it grows reaches out, seeks them out and somehow connects in a way that I might not even be aware of. As I grow in Him, do I just do that? Grow In Him! I hope so, I really do….

Bars and Chains

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,

Because the LORD has anointed me
To bring good news to the afflicted;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to captives
And freedom to prisoners


Isaiah 61:1






Early, this past Sunday morning, as I sat in my empty sanctuary, I could almost picture the people that would fill the pews. As I did, these words of scripture came to mind.


Later as I looked over the congregation from the choir loft, I saw the reality in the faces looking back at me. Had I not been prepared, I would have been picking out the “two-fers”. Those who darken the door of a church only on Easter and Christmas. Before that scripture, I would have hoped they received something from the worship experience. Something that would bring them back or, even better, walk them down the aisle to profess their faith.


But now as I saw their faces, I saw something else. I saw captives and prisoners. Not just in those unknown faces, but also in the familiar faces of my family of faith. It dawned on me that so many of us in that room were being held captive and we did not even realize it. The bars were ones that so many of us shared, they were almost invisible. Cells of addiction to work or play. Prisoners to ill health and financial woes. Bindings of greed, anger, lust, and guilt were so entwined, freedom was barely a distant memory.


Hope was the message preached this past Sunday and it is the message the world of today is dying to hear. Hope in a freedom that seems so elusive. A freedom that must be desired before it can be realized.

As it was proclaimed in our worship, I realized the actual “setting free”was not in a number on our rolls, a trip down the aisle, or even tears on a cheek. It was the ability of His Word to do a work in a heart. Unseen and often unnoticed. But inch by inch, link by link, chains could be removed and there was no knowing if this Easter Sunday was the day when the final link would be shattered or the prison door flung open.


Because, He does nothing without our permission or our agreement. And to make that decision, we must see the prison bars and have hope that it is possible to be set free. That is our mission and our call to preach.

Undeserved Love

Undeserved Love......

That is what the Easter message truly is.   God reaching down to a hurting, messed up, needy, sinful creation.  And in doing so,saying "You are my beloved".  And the proof was on the cross.

In thinking about this, I thought about who we love undeservedly.  We love our families but that is out of blood connection and somewhat duty.  We care for co-workers and friends.   But here again, in our busy lives we do not go too deep.  There is only so much time and energy left after our day or work and play that can be expended.  We seek to invest in those friends that are low maintenance.  Much as we choose the shrubs in our landscaping.  Friends that require little of our time and energy.  That we can pick up from time to time to enjoy.  That give as much as take.  That reciprocate our care and concern.  Needy, high maintenace folks are shunned or at least avoided.

But you see, that is not how Jesus worked.  He not only acknowledged the needy and lost, he invested in them.  He loved them and healed them.  I never thought about it, but I am sure many of those healed and fed were in the group of followers that followed Him from city to city.  Still needing to be near Him.  To see Him and touch Him.  Much like the woman with the issue of blood, I am sure these least of mankind drained power from His very essence.

So as I approach Good Friday and prepare to be confronted with His final act of benevolence, what am I to do with this over the top grace? How do I begin to emulate that in my life and my living? Where do I find the time to "love" as He did?  Who do I choose to invest in? What must I give up to do this? 

Lord, where do I even begin....

A Glimpse of Heaven

I enter this Holy Week with a great sadness.  A young couple I know has lost their 2 year-old little girl.  She had a congenital heart defect and was on the list to receive a new heart.  It just was not to be.

This great tragedy is compounded by the fact that her four year old brother died one year ago this month from the same ailment.  It was not even known at the time he had the condition until he collapsed at a sporting event and died subsequently.  

In praying for the young couple, I was at a loss for words.  What solace could there possibly be for the loss of 2 precious children?  How could someone ever get over something like that.  Even silence,  tears, and moans could do no justice to so great a tragedy.  But what came to me, in that expression to God, was a plea for heaven.  If the young couple could just see a glimpse of the place their children now lived.  If they could see the face of Jesus and the love He has for their babies.  The heavenly host who have so wrapped their love and their support around these two darlings - perhaps that would be of some comfort.

As the week has progressed, I thought of another parent.  How did God perceive this Holy Week we are traveling through?  How does a parent watch and wait for what He knows will unfold?  How can He know that He will literally sit on His hands and that His will is for His Son to do the same?  What pain and agony!  A torturous death that could in all actuality be avoided.  And for what?  A world that would scorn, scoff and curse His name not only in that moment but for thousands of years to come? 

Was that glimpse of heaven what sustained them?  Did God realize in a few short days, His Son would be released from the earthly bonds He had submitted Him to thirty three years prior.  Was He picturing Jesus once again joining Him, sitting at His right hand, ruling with Him over heaven and earth?

And was the fact that this one act of sacrifice on the parts of them both, would open heaven's gates in a way that nothing else had, would, or could.  That the division between perfection and imperfection, sinner and saint, good and evil - all would be bridged by the very act of their mutual suffering and pain.  The same glimpse of heaven would become a reality for us all. 

I am sitting here loved, saved, and sanctified because They did!

Alleluia!!