Longsuffering part 5
When you can endure, when you can turn the other cheek, when you can pray for your "enemies" that's when you really begin to understand what longsuffering is. It is patience. And it is one of the greatest forms of love. Love is patient and kind. Love never fails, because love endures. And, let's be clear, that doesn't mean "love" will get you everything you want. Because that's not love. Love is never about getting. Because love is giving. Jesus said the greatest love a man can have is to lay his life down for his friends. Giving everything you have and everything you are. Without worrying about the fact that is seems like the more you love people, the less they love you. It doesn't matter how (or if) people pick up what you're laying down. All you can do is your part. Now, having said that, it is important to cultivate relationships so that people CAN pick up what you're laying down. Learning how to love by learning how we are loved. Learning how to love by learning how those individual people in our lives NEED to be loved. That's the wisdom part of love. Me, for example, I like effort. I see that as a labor of love. My wife likes words of affirmation. We can't love each other the "wrong" way and expect it to do what it's supposed to do. We have to really see each other, and then give each other what is needed. Which, of course, brings me to my old standby--if you don't know what to do... do what you know. Love. And that is as simple as seeing a need and meeting it. "What should we do?" If you have two shirts and you see someone without one... give them one of yours. That's it, man. Simple as that. Live out of your abudance. Don't worry about if someone "deserves" your love. Deserve has nothing to do with it. Love is giving. Receiving and releasing. Letting what's inside come out by knowing and believing that it's in there. Giving what you've got because you know it's too good to keep to yourself. We love because God first loved us. He filled us up with His love and now we can release it by filling ourselves to overflowing with what we've already been filled with. Know it and believe it. Receive it and release it. Receive it BY releasing it. Release it by receiving it. You can't give what you don't have, and you can only give what you do have. So if you love someone, that means--on some level--you beleive God loves you. Otherwise you wouldn't have love to give them. If you didn't know what you've got, you wouldn't be able to give it. Faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word (which is Jesus, which is love) of God. Letting that Holy Spirit wildfire consume you to the point where everything else except love has been swallowed up and burned away. It's easy to have patience when you can see the big picture. When you can see that all things work together for good. It's easy to be longsuffering when you know there's a light at the end of the tunnel. When you can understand the grand scheme. You don't have to fight everything. Sometimes you simply have to endure. Turn the other cheek. Don't retaliate. Understand that it came to pass, not to stay. That you can endure... because love endures. You don't have to always get your own way. You can still love people, and put them first. Longsuffering is about enduring. About standing on the Rock when you don't think you can stand anymore. About holding on to God--to love--and realizing that it is really HIM holding on to you!