Know It All part 5
God is love and He loves you. That's the long and the short of it. It's that simple, and it's that vast. When you know the love of God--with a knowledge that passes knowledge--you can truly live. Because to live is to love and to love is to live. You can't have one without the other and you can't do one without the other. They aren't just connected, they are the same thing. Let me say it like this: No love, no life. KNOW love, KNOW life! Knowing it all isn't about being able to prove people wrong. If your goal is to be right at someone else's expense... that's the opposite of love. Love doesn't tear people down. Love builds people up. Love is never about getting. Because love IS giving. You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving. So there's a big difference between knowing it all--the ultimate truth of the universe that God is love and He loves you--and being a know it all and trying to prove how smart you are all the time. Proverbs 17:28 says, "Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding." Sometimes you say it best when you say nothing at all. Sometimes a kind word is better than the last word. Even if you're "right," you don't have to prove it. You don't have to argue about it. You can let people think what they want to think. You can let people be who they are. It's not your job to change people. But that's what know it alls want to do. They want to convince you that they are right and you are wrong. They want to convince you that they know more than you do. That they're up here and you're down there somewhere. That's not love. Love doesn't demand its (HIS) own way. Love lets people be who they are and loves them anyway. Sometimes from a distance. Yes. Because no matter how hard you try, sometimes you just don't fit with certain people. And that's ok. I'm not for everybody. I know that. I accept it. And I just shrug my shoulders and get in where I fit in. Be where you're celebrated, not where you're tolerated. Know your tribe, if I can say it that way. Know where you belong. Do what you can do. Connect with those people that you can connect with. And, listen, that doesn't mean you have to get your own way all the time. There are a couple of guys at work that I decided to get along with. Decided to. And both of these dudes like to talk about music. Extensively. I like music. Good to go, right? Well, kind of. Because our musical tastes couldn't be further apart. But I just let them ramble on about how excited they are for so and so's new album. Even though I have no desire to even listen to one song off that album. It makes them happy, and they want to share about it, so... ok. I know enough to know that it's not all about me. Love is giving. Not getting. We've already gotten everything we need because God loves us enough to have given it to us. So we have what we need, and we can give what we have. Receiving and releasing the gift we've been given. If we know what we've got... what we can give... then we know it all. Because what we've got, what we can give... is love!