Welcome to something to LOVE for! This is a blog dedicated to exploring life with Jesus in community with other people. It is for talking about what God is doing in our lives, and for talking about what it would look like to follow Jesus more closely. And most of all, it is about sharing God's incredible love with anyone and everyone.
This blog is the brainchild of a prayer that went a little something like this:
God, I want to be closer to You. I want to feel you right here with me. And I want you to teach me how to love other people in the way that you do.
And then I was thinking about starting a blog. So I dismissed the idea (obviously), because my new thing is reading fashion blogs. And then I continued praying:
God, I just feel so disconnected from you. And I know that you've been telling me in the past few days to really focus on loving people better. So, God, tell me what to do.
And then I was thinking about starting a blog again.
Hey God. So, this blog thing. Is this real, is this You? Because sometimes I get distracted and think about other things while I'm praying.... so I need you to tell me if this is real.
And then I was thinking about starting a blog.
Okay. Okay, I'll try. But God, I'm not some amazing theologian. My relationship with you isn't even very established. What would I even write about.
And then I remembered this sermon that my pastor gave a couple weeks back, where he told the story of this man who was having some trouble getting along with his wife. So he took a close look at 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and week by week, painstakingly asked God to teach him how to be each one of the qualities in this verse, so that he would learn to love his wife a little bit better. Now for those of us (ME) who can't just summon up random Bible verses from memory, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 goes a little something like this:
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It 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. (NIV)
So this man went through each quality-- patient, kind, not envious, not boastful, not proud, etc.-- and slowly but surely, taught himself how to better love his wife. Well this got me thinking: What if I did the same thing, but on a 2 week-per basis, but instead of loving my non-existant spouse better, I just learned to love people. I mean, what better way to get closer to God than to teach myself to obey what Jesus said was the greatest commandment (to love God and love your neighbor)?
So here we go. Project 1 Corinthians 13:4 (1c134). And what I firmly believe God wants me to begin my blog talking about. So who will take the challenge with me? Who will learn to love?
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