The New Love Chapter

With my sincere apologies to the apostle Paul, I have come up with the 21st century antithesis of 1st
Corinthians 13, the great "love chapter" of the Bible. Just to clarify: God's Word has never changed, and never will. My purpose here is to present a wake-up call to us all. Love takes hard work, sacrifice and prayer, along with some serious blood, sweat and tears. It was never meant to be a cake-walk. And it was certainly never meant to be "all about me." Jesus said to love others first, not self. Read on if you dare... and if you feel a conviction in your heart, please take time to crack open a Bible afterward and read what God really has to say.

Then live it. 

The New Love Chapter

Love is selfish, love is me-first. It wants what others have, it constantly speaks only of itself, never considering the thoughts, welfare, or feelings of others. It shows no compassion for others and doesn't share a thing, but rather puts all the focus on itself. Love gets angry easily and posts all its frustrations on Facebook and Twitter. It keeps a running tally of supposed injuries to its pride and vanity. It applauds when it gets revenge, and doesn't let the truth get in the way of a good bout with self-pity. It never protects or trusts anybody, sees the glass as constantly half-empty and gives up at the first chance it gets. 

Love talks about itself and its family as a failure, because that's how it draws attention to itself. But when God wants to speak, it shuts Him out. Where He wants to give vision, love closes its eyes. When God wants to help, love says "I can do this on my own." Love thinks that it knows it all, but truth will one day present a different reality. For now, love is on a mission to prove that it alone is right, and everyone is out to get it. The compassionate correction, opinions or requests of others are dismissed in the twinkling of an eye. But one day, love will learn how wrong it has been. By then, it will be too late. Love will lose all it could have had simply by opening its cold heart to truth. 

Now only two remain: Faith and hope. And love has given up on both. 

-Tim LaVere

Unity Sand

I saw something at a wedding today I had not seen before. Apparently the "new thing" is unity sand. Instead of lighting a unity candle, the bride and groom each pour their own vial of individually colored sand into a bowl, and the two become one... symbolizing the unity of the man and woman. It's a great idea.

At our wedding almost 24 years ago, my wife and I lit our unity candle together. But within a few moments it caught a breeze and burned out. My much older brother had a lighter in his pocket, so he re-lit the candle. I guess it didn't matter much, because the marriage has lasted.

Unlike most Ministers I've spoken with, I would much rather perform a wedding than a funeral. I get a kick out of them. It's a pleasure to help the bride and groom through their day, acting as a sort of mediator, calming their nerves, and having the best view in the whole church as they repeat their vows. There's still this awesome feeling I have at weddings and baptisms that seems to fairly scream, "Who am I to be standing here doing this? What right do I have to baptize like John the Baptist did? What right do I have to pronounce anybody man and wife?"

I hope I never lose that feeling. I pray that every time I act as God's messenger; the hands and feet of Jesus, that I stand in awe of what a privilege it really is to serve Him. It's not always easy. Ours is not a profession that has the respect it once did. Criticism and ridicule are the order of the day and our reward for standing up for the truth in a post-modern generation. So it's days like this that make it all worthwhile. The smiles, the tears, the relief the couples feel when I pronounce them husband and wife... yeah. That's the payoff.

Thank you God, for letting me be a part of your divine plans. You ARE awesome!

Ugly Can Be Beautiful

I'm thinking of painting a big mural of an electric chair on my outdoor shed, and lighting it up at night so everyone driving by can see it clearly.

Okay, not really. After all, who wants to be reminded of a man-made killing machine created for the sole purpose of taking someone's life? It's not a decoration... it's ugly. People die a cruel, painful, humiliating death in those things. Yet, I saw something similar on a back country road last night, and it brought me a sense of peace and hope that I desperately needed.

Of course. It was a cross. A simple lighted cross on the side of a barn. I can't begin to tell you the overwhelming sense of God's presence that flooded my soul like a tsunami when I saw that ancient instrument of torture. Come on, let's be real. The cross wasn't meant to be pretty. It was meant to a painful, public, humiliating and cruel way to punish criminals. Yet we've dressed it up, we wear it around our necks, print it on our shirts and bumper stickers and tattoo it on our bodies. Why? Because for all of its ugliness, the cross is a beautiful thing.

That's just what God does best. He takes something ugly and makes it beautiful. All day long yesterday I was at the point of despair, reminded of all of the beauty God gave us, and how the world has turned it into something ugly. He gave us love, and we hate. He gave us language, and we abuse each other. He gave us the laughter of children, and we throw them away like garbage before they take their first breath. He made woman and man for each other, yet the world thinks it knows better and sets out to destroy the God-ordained institution of sacred marriage. The clay is telling the Potter, "You don't know what you're doing. I know You're the Creator, but you messed up." As Christians, we're not of the world, but we're still in it. The pain and sorrow of it all was getting to be too much last night. I was hurting for people I dearly love.

Then again, that's why Jesus went to the cross.

For the most part, I stopped believing in coincidence years ago. Oh sure, sometimes I'll be thinking of someone just as the phone rings, and there they are! But I've seen God's hand at work too many times to just chalk it all up to happenstance. No, there was a reason I chose to drive down an unfamiliar country road late at night, and come across not one, but two beautiful lighted crosses in two separate yards. God always seems to do this to me when I need a good kick in the pants. Correction... He doesn't do it to me. He does it for me.

Just like He did on the cross.