Snapshots remind us of times past. They rekindle memories and create opportunities for sharing stories.
Those who have experienced God before us provide snapshots of God’s love for us. This love speaks through their words. It speaks through their actions.
As different as their lives and cultures were from ours, God’s love remains the same. Love speaks to us on our darkest days and in our brightest hours. Love speaks to us through stories and snapshots. Love speaks to us through actions and words.
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:1-3
Spiderman probably is not the first thing that comes to mind while reading today’s passage, but in the first movie, Peter is reminded that with great power comes great responsibility. We live in a culture that tells us power makes someone important.
The words of Paul remind us that the gifts we have are useless if used in the wrong way. No spiritual gift or intellectual gift or material gift is worth a thing if love is absent. Seems rather harsh doesn’t it? Think of it this way: If you are a great singer, thinker, or actor, but use your gifts to make others feel less than you, are you someone that will know love or be loved by others?
God wants you to know God’s love, but that comes from giving it away wastefully and freely. That requires humility. Can you do that, so that you will not be a noisy gong to others?
Brian Foreman
God of love, teach me how to love and be loved. Allow others to know your love because your people show a different way to be. Amen.
You are God’s.
You are loved and known.
Let love speak to you.
Let love speak through you.
Amen.