The Love Test
Today I was touched and humbled at the way God chose to continue working in my heart and mind to change my character. I enjoy reading Christian fiction books and had a few hours on Sunday to relax and dive into a story called Thief of Corinth by Tessa Afshar.
In the story the apostle Paul asked a group of people to close their eyes and think of a person they loved with all their heart. Then he said, “let us put your love to God’s test, for this is how God loves.”
“Say to the one you are thinking of: My love for you is patient. I have never been impatient with you. Not by word or deed have I ever shown you any impatience.”
One character commented, “Well, I’m done for already, I cannot say that without lying. I have no patience.” He continued, “My love for you is kind. I have not spoken to you unkindly in all the years that I have known you. I have never harbored an unkind thought toward you.”
Next he said, “I have never been envious of you. Never felt jealous of your abilities or possessions. I am not resentful or angry when you spend time with others or show them affection. I have never spoken rudely to you. My love for you does not make selfish demands. I have never insisted that I should have my own way.”
“My love is not easily angered. I have never held on to offenses you have committed against me. Indeed, I have wiped them from my heart and memory.”
“My love for you has never given up, never lost faith, never stopped hoping for the best. I have not given in to despair or discouragement, no matter what we have faced. My love for you will endure through every circumstance. My love for you never fails. Not even in the darkest hours.”
One by one those present opened their eyes as they realized that if this was love’s standard, then they had never truly loved. After reading this I took the love test and I too failed.
“We fail. We fail because we have never tasted of such a love. We do not know how to receive it, how to give it. It requires a power beyond our own to live out this love. To experience it. That power can come only from God Himself. From the Spirit of our Lord.”
“How I pray that you will have the spiritual strength to comprehend how wide and how long and high and deep is the love of Christ for you. And tasting of that love, learn to love as Jesus loves.”
God wants me to get the very heart of the matter and that is love. I need to be honest with how I have loved my husband and the truth is that I haven’t loved him like God loves me. I’ve allowed impatience, unkindness, jealousy, selfishness, anger and grudges to dictate how I will respond to him. God’s love is none of those things.
I’m grateful for the lesson today no matter how hard it was to hear. God has never failed in loving me with all my faults and shortcomings and I need to do the same. I want to show my husband that kind of unconditional love. Yes, I will need God’s help to do it because after loving the wrong way for so long, I will need to learn how to love the right way, God’s way.
“Paul’s speech was like a thunderbolt in a black sky, illuminating everything in sharp contrast. Those words made you see your own heart, the empty places you hid in the dark. They were words that made you hungry. Who wouldn’t want to be loved like that? A love without boundaries, a love that endured and forgave all things. A love that never failed.”
Today is our 24th Wedding Anniversary and I would say it’s the perfect day to start loving God’s way.
My Prayer
Father, I thank you for Your commitment to teach me and refine me. Thank you for the lesson on love today and for showing me a clear picture of where I have fallen short. Thank you also for showing me that with Your help I can love as You love. Thank you for my husband, for his patience with me and for his perseverance in remaining with me when my love for him has been less than he deserved. He is a gift from You Lord and I pray that I will be the wife and helpmate that You have called me to be in his life. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Where does my help come from?
1 Corinthians 13: 4-8, 13 (NIV)
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Ephesians 3: 16-19
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.