“Turn right!” my husband Tom blurted out testily.
“I don’t want to turn here. I know where I’m going!” I retorted.
It is easy to react with rudeness when someone has a sharp tone. I love my husband; that’s easy to write but harder to put into practice. I am sometimes overly sensitive and easily angered. But God’s love in me is not. If I submit to him, his plan, and his Spirit I will receive his power. Then I can overcome the evil forces inciting me to give in to self pity and to give out ugly words and actions. I can act in love, even when I may not feel very loving.
God in me is greater than any evil force in the world (1 John 4:4). The Word commands us to take captive every thought and every feeling to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). I need to focus on the positive aspects of my husband’s character instead of the flaws I might detect. I should thank Jesus for my husband and pray for us both to be conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29). We must choose to love and to serve whether we feel like it or not. This passage on love makes our mere human love look pathetic. The characteristics of love mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13 are impossible without God’s supernatural power working on the inside of us through his Holy Spirit. I challenge you to bite your tongue the next time you feel slighted, insulted, or disrespected. Ask the Holy Spirit inside you to take over, forgive that person and treat them with the unconditional love of God.
Dear Lord, Thank you for loving me no matter what I do or say. Help me to forgive those who hurt me. I want to treat them badly and retaliate in anger but that is not your way. Please forgive me, because I have accepted that Jesus paid the penalty of my wrongs through his death. Give me your power to love others with my actions and my words. Thank you.
Throughout this Day: Meditate on 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, thinking about how God loves you in these specific ways and how he wants to love others through you.
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Photo Credit: Shihab Nymur