Above all else, Put on Love!

 

How do we get dressed in the morning?

I love new clothes, beautiful and colourful clothes that express my personality. 

I love the excitement of a new outfit and the anticipation of wearing it for the first time.

I imagine that I will feel so special and so unique.

 My clothes say something about me.

For sure they show that I am fun loving, creative and colourful. 

I want them to say classy and elegant, but I fear that all too often, I fall short of this ambition!

But in one of my favourite bible verses, the bible tells us to;

"Put on love!"

 " Therefore as Gods chosen people, holy and dearly loved, 

clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, 

humility, gentleness and patience.

Bear with each other and forgive one another

 if any of you has a grievance against someone.

Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

And above all these virtues put on love,

 which binds them all together in perfect unity. "

Colossians 3 v 12 - 14

Clothing ourselves with love and being filled each day with the Holy Spirit is more important than anything else that we put on.

We should take a few moments to put on love.

This sounds so wonderfully easy, and yet it is absolutely impossible to do without God.

For the past few days I have been mulling over these verses, and this morning I woke up with a verse in my mind.

 " And now these things remain; faith, hope and love 

and the greatest of these is love. "

I immediately recognised the old familiar verses from 1 Corinthians 13 and I opened my bible and began to read.

My skim over the verses, had me mentally agreeing with the words, yet for some reason that I can't explain, I felt the desire to read them again.

This time substituting the word love, for my name and the name of someone I love!

As I read the words, " Dawn in her relationship with ........... is patient, kind, does not envy, is not boastful, or rude or self seeking, is not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs.........

The words became harder and harder to say with any conviction, the lump in my throat made it unbearable, and the deep conviction of the Holy Spirit, emptied me, of my previous confidence and pride in my ability to love!

I am incapable of doing any of those things! 

How I delight in keeping a record of wrongs!

Sometimes, when my life is going well, and by going well, I mean everything is going my way!

I genuinely believe, that I am peaceful, patient and loving and that I have forgiven everyone.

Only to find a few weeks later, when my calm seas become a little rougher and a little bit of stress or anxiety comes my way, it drains me of all my energy, and brings out the very worst in me.

I can dredge the sea bed and find a list of wrongs others have done to me. 

Things that I thought I had long forgiven, and forgotten get stirred up!

Building mountains in my mind, of self seeking and self serving,

 morsels of unforgiveness, to chew over and over again!

Oh dear it is not so easy after all!

This loving thing is tough! 

It's not all skipping through the meadows, in a fluffy pink cloud, looking lovingly upon everything.

It's tough, heroic, sacrificing, requires effort and to be honest for me,

 a serious amount of time on my knees in prayer.

Oh Lord how I fail! Even the easy stuff, I fail!

Many years ago, I asked God how I could serve Him, what did He want me to do?

It was one of those astonishing times when I received the clear answer at lighting spead!

 " Love others when everyone else has ran out of love,

& 

Forgive others when everyone else has ran out of forgiveness. "

I am still astonished at the beauty and simplicity of those words, they are so wonderfully poignant.

So easy and yet so outrageously difficult to do in the flesh.

I recently read an article, about the wonderful Corrie Ten Boom. 

How she, having forgiven the Nazi guard who cruelly treated her and her sister Betsie,  thought that she had got this forgiveness thing down.

She was later surprised that when some Christian friends hurt her, she struggled. 

In an act of will she decided to forgive them, but she still woke in the night, troubled by their actions and her feelings of pain and betrayal.

"And having thus learned to forgive in this hardest of situations, I never again had difficulty in forgiving: I wish I could say it! I wish I could say that merciful and charitable thoughts just naturally flowed from me from then on. But they didn’t.

Maybe I’m glad it’s that way. For every time I go to Him, He teaches me something else. I recall the time, some 15 years ago, when some Christian friends whom I loved and trusted did something which hurt me.

You would have thought that, having forgiven the Nazi guard, this would have been child’s play. It wasn’t. For weeks I seethed inside. But at last I asked God again to work His miracle in me. And again it happened: first the cold-blooded decision, then the flood of joy and peace.

I had forgiven my friends; I was restored to my Father.

Then, why was I suddenly awake in the middle of the night, hashing over the whole affair again? My friends! I thought. People I loved! If it had been strangers, I wouldn’t have minded so.

I sat up and switched on the light. “Father, I though it was all forgiven! Please help me do it!”

But the next night I woke up again. They’d talked so sweetly too! Never a hint of what they were planning. “Father!” I cried in alarm. “Help me!”

His help came in the form of a kindly Lutheran pastor to whom I confessed my failure after two sleepless weeks.

“Up in that church tower,” he said, nodding out the window, “is a bell which is rung by pulling on a rope. But you know what? After the sexton lets go of the rope, the bell keeps on swinging. First ding then dong. Slower and slower until there’s a final dong and it stops.

“I believe the same thing is true of forgiveness. When we forgive someone, we take our hand off the rope. But if we’ve been tugging at our grievances for a long time, we mustn’t be surprised if the old angry thoughts keep coming for a while. They’re just the ding-dongs of the old bell slowing down.”

And so it proved to be. There were a few more midnight reverberations, a couple of dings when the subject came up in my conversation. But the force–which was my willingness in the matter–had gone out of them. They came less and less often and at last stopped altogether . 

I can truly relate to Corrie Ten Boom in this article and it truly encourages me that a woman of such faith had similar struggles.

So often that  bell of unforgiveness is still ringing inside of me,

the rope is still swinging!

thoughts come unbidden, unwanted and uninvited!

Praise God for His patience, His forgiveness and His gentle reminders!

 " The greatest of these is love. "

So I pray Father, quadruple my love, a double portion isn't enough!

Quadruple my forgiveness.

Crown me with love and compassion 

&

 Clothe me with love, before I face the world each day.

Amen

Article quoted, 

Guideposts.org

Corrie Ten Boom on Forgiveness