I read the passage below to my boys today.
I’ll be honest, when I opened the Bible to read,
my middle son disappointedly said, “Ohh.”
I told him I understood and that I felt that way
when I was a child sometimes too;
I was a Pastor’s kid ya' know.
But I also told him that this is his only floatation device
that will work when the storms come, he smiled,
and baby, they will come.
I said I know he didn’t fully understand what I was saying
but one day, when he was older, he would.
The world offers a beautiful buffet of wonderful and
customized distractions all conveniently within our reach.
But like sugar, they give us that quick, temporary high
and then the crash follows leaving us craving for something more.
It is my job to prepare my children to focus on the positive
and reach for the right tools during the hard times
they will inevitably encounter.
I want awesome things that will last in their survival kit.
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
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.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
I Corinthians 13
Thanks Mom and Dad
& Grandma and Grandpa
for giving me some pretty awesome
tools in my survival kit.
