loving people live in a loving world.
hostile people live in a hostile world.
same world.
--wayne dyer
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
love never fails
... now i know in part
then i shall know fully
even as i am fully known...
-- 1 cor. 13
i over-analyzed every possible course of action that i should embark on after my horrible day yesterday... i ended up with thinking i needed to figure out a harsher/more creative consequence for all my miscreants since what i'm doing isn't working... or maybe i needed to figure out a way of talking or acting that would 'get through to them' better...
as i was driving to work this morning, after a day of over-analyzing my brain into a tizzy, a slip of paper that i keep in my visor with that part of 1 cor. 13 written on it literally fell in my lap, if you can believe it :-)
when it comes right down to it, the answer is so simple -- love.
it's my attitude and heart -- am i loving?
i talked to my 3rd hour class about that and we had such a good conversation.
it seems to takes a crisis for me to realize the depth of my need for a solution. then the whole crisis is turned around when i apply that appropriate solution.
the idea in that first quote is so great -- if i'm a loving person, the world i live in is a loving world... it's so much about perspective and attitude. granted, if i act lovingly, it doesn't change all the truly degraded actions/people/cities/ethical dilemmas that never go away...
but personally, if i act lovingly i'm creating a world of love around me in my thoughts and the people i interact with... which eventually someday just might affect all that degradedness.
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HEY!!!! I was thinking about this very thing today in class - one of our teachers was talking about Eph. 5 and 6 and what our social relationships should look like when we are filled with the Spirit (not like shouting and speaking in tongues - you know what I mean) - anyway, and he was talking about how you have to realize that love for people does not come from you at all, but the more you take hold of the fact that you are one with Christ and His Spirit is in you, He gives you that love for people and they really notice it. So YES! I thought about my students and how there was nothing that "lovely" about them sometimes, and how I at times wanted to go on a murderous rampage (of words of course) but I remember sometimes coming out of myself and just really loving them sincerely, and it was nothing I did, you know? So I thought I would tell you that since we are on the same page today - SIII!!!
I heard a pastor, Rob Bell, speak on LOVE once. His mottow has long since been, LOVE WINS. Anyways, he stated that our actions are always going to have an influence... and that they will either bring Heaven to earth, or Hell - and it's completely up to us. Will the LOVE flowing out of us be a glimpse of eternal joy, or will our curt responses and jeering comments be a glimpse of the fate others will eternally regret.
And I just re-read my comment... I spelled "motto" really humorously... :)
I bet love doesn't blow a cog when someone turns up the heat at church, then opens a window. Gotta work on that. :-)
Ditto when applied to un-"love"ly fellow faculty members too! I had the same type of week last week...but my focus was on faculty behaviors rather than students behaviors. I guess sometimes I expect the grown-ups to act a little more mature then the kids...but then I'm disappointed! And I teach elementary level, for pete's sake! Anyway, the solution is the same regardless of the age...love. Which, by the way, I do you! What a dear, dear neice-y you are!
Wow! This is a recurring theme that I'm hearing from all sides, it seems. My heart has been MAJORLY burdened with the thought of I Peter 4:8, "Above all keep fervent in your love for one another because love covers a multitude of sins."
Over and over the Lord brings me back to this - love her/him!
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