neorants

Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, 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.

Yes, it’s from the Bible. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7,13 to be exact. These are some of the most beautiful verses in scripture, to me. I’ve been going through what easily qualifies as the most painful emotional experience of my life for over 6 months now. I’m not going to get into the details here. If you know what’s going on, and decide to comment, please be vague about the specifics out of respect and love toward the other person involved.

What’s important is that during this time, especially in recent weeks, it would be easy to find myself harboring feelings of anger, protecting my pride, becoming wrapped up in self-pity or the blame game. It’s incredibly difficult to remember to show patience, kindness, and trust. And especially, it’s easy to lose hope and perseverance during this time. Through all this, I constantly must remind myself that it is my duty to protect the other party, even when their actions are hurting me.

Last night, I found myself in a crisis of faith. I refuse to believe that the direction things are going is in God’s will, because He explicitly makes His position on this issue known in scripture, yet I can no longer see a path that leads to His appointed destination. I spent the entire evening talking with family, and one close friend who I consider family. Through it all, they listened. Never in the 6 years since I moved to Louisville have I been so acutely aware of how alone I am, here. I have some friends, sure, but my family is over 400 miles away.

I received plenty of well-intentioned advice, as well, but I kept coming back to this: most of the advice requires me to act in a way that seems to me self-seeking. They tell me it’s justified given the situation, that I have to look after myself. They’re good friends and family, and it’s kind of them to say so. But I can’t help but think that by taking their advice, I’d be veering from God’s path and doing more to harm the chances of a resolution than help them. This situation could very well end in financial ruin for me, if I follow my conscience instead of what everyone else seems to tell me is common sense. But if I can’t even trust in God to provide the means to meet basic needs, and instead choose to “look out for number one” on my own, ignoring His guidance, how can I rightfully expect Him to bless my efforts?

In the end, I found myself unable to calm down to sleep that night, and flipping through my Bible, I came to the passage referred to at the beginning of this entry. I had read it dozens of times since this all began, but I decided to spend some time “hiding it in my heart” (Psalm 119:11) last night. It had been a long time since I actively worked to memorize scripture (when you work with computers for a living, you tend to adopt the attitude that what you can look up easily, you needn’t memorize) but I was glad I did. The neat thing about scripture is that you can read the same text more than once and take away a different emphasis each time, depending on your need. As I read it, my focus shifted toward the last part of the passage, rather than the first, as it normally had.

Protection. Hope. Trust. Perseverance.

Precisely the things I needed to think about at that time. I decided to stick to my convictions, and do what I can to continue displaying God’s love in the best way I know how. My friends and family will probably tell me I’m being impractical. The way I see it, this is the only practical way to approach things. You can’t expect God’s guidance if you make it clear that you aren’t going to play by His rules.

Please consider committing the verses above to memory. Even if you aren’t a Christian, you can probably agree on the beauty of their sentiment.

If you are a Christian, think about the aspects of love which you have a hard time displaying, and pray for help in these areas of your life. Call these verses from memory when you find yourself unsure of which course to take, and let Him guide your actions.

And please, pray for me. I’m going to need all the help I can get.