
The Wonder of Love: Why Charity Is the Greatest of All
Love is the greatest because it’s not just the plan to restore God and his people. It’s the goal.
Love is the greatest because it’s not just the plan to restore God and his people. It’s the goal.
There is a way back to joy, and the directions are simple. “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8). Once you get there, joy will be waiting.
We hold our joy in the same hands that we carry burdens. We run through nature and find our peace because the world is so very fractious. And for those few moments of breathing deeply and listening to the cicada chorus serenade us, we are okay.
Hope is born in the shade, when the absence of light might otherwise leave us stunted. Instead, the darkness propels us to seek out bright spots, to find those places, however narrow, where the sunlight can break through.
Regardless of our circumstances, whenever we ask the question, where is God in [cancer, divorce, recession, pandemic, hurricane, systemic racism, terrorism]?, the answer is always HERE. God’s enduring presence is a promise I’ve clung to again and again. But there’s another side of God’s presence that can be hard for people, that can be hard for me. If God is with us in [cancer, divorce, recession, pandemic, hurricane, systemic racism, terrorism], then why isn’t he doing anything about it?
When we make ourselves vulnerable to the presence of another, we don’t always emerge unscathed. Changed, yes. Encouraged and uplifted and bolstered in our hope, sometimes. But also bruised and wounded, all too often.