365 Days with God - Day 95: Love

I'm giving myself a challenge. Read the Bible each day for a whole year, following the ESV Study Guide 1-year plan. Each day, I will post whatever God has revealed to me in His Word, and how it is changing me. A friend of mine once said that nothing has changed her life as much as reading the bible each day - and I'm excited for how this will change me. Join me on an adventure into the heart of God - and day by day, we can learn more about who He is and what that means to us!

- Andy Catts

Day 95, March 25, 2014

Readings: Psalm 95, Leviticus 1, Esther 8, 1 Corinthians 13

Yeah, you probably saw this coming. I can't not write about this. You might even be able to discern what my first question is going to be.

How do you demonstrate love? What is love? What makes you feel like someone is showing you love?

What would make you stop and say, with absolute certainty, that something was, indeed, true love?

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on it's own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a)

Read those words. Then read them again. Now read them a third time.

Does that sound like the love you have for anyone or anything?

It sounds ideal. It sounds like what I want my marriage to be. It sounds like how I want to love my kids. But I'm impatient. I can be unkind. I am envious of my wife's attention, I want to boast about me, I feel superior and have been rude often. I always want my own way, I get irritated and resentful. I may not feel like I rejoice at wrongdoing, but sometimes I scheme to get my way and I'm happy when that succeeds. Only through God's intervention can I bear, believe, hope and endure all things. My love is finite.

And so, if I'm honest with myself, my love looks nothing like what true love is. What an ideal love is. What God says love is. Which leaves me with the impossible task of living out a love that I can't even begin to succeed at. Instead, I seem to be failing at all of them, often.

Which leaves me at one place - on my knees. Asking God to daily bring me back to Him. To the only one who can love in the way that we all long to be loved. Who loves so much that He would endure all things, even unto death, to make the love never ending. I want to know a love like that. I want to emulate a love like that. I need God for both.