For a long time I've struggled with loving people the way I'm supposed to love them: especially my family. I've read, memorized, and quoted 1 Corinthians 13 - the love chapter. You'll see it on wedding cards and favors. It's always been a little reminder:
Love is patient.
Love is kind.
Blah, blah, blah. And then a few months back I heard someone speaking, or maybe it was in a book I was reading, but they said, read that chapter and everywhere you see the word love (or charity if you're reading the KJV) put your name. Wow talk about an eye opener.
Jennifer is patient
Jennifer is kind
Well I reviewed the one's I remembered, and thought would people really say these things about me? Could my family say these things about me? See if I asked myself if I was these things it would be easy to deceive myself into thinking I was something or someone I'm not. But if I looked from an outward perspective could I live up to God's standard of love. I'm sorry to say that I was severely flawed. And so to add insult to injury, I decided that I would read the entire chapter and ask myself honestly if I fulfilled the actions of love. As I began to read the chapter one line struck to the very core of me. "Love keeps no record of wrong" (vs 5). I was stumped, flabbergasted. This so clearly showed me what I desperately needed to change. And so I put my name in that line: Jennifer keeps no record of wrong. There was no way that line was true. It was a blatant lie.
I'm blessed with an amazing memory. I can quote conversations verbatim and even tell you what the people were wearing, how they were sitting or standing, etc. And so I knew I was keeping a record of wrongs: especially against my sister and my mother. And so anytime they upset me I'd put another tally in the column of my mind of why I was justified in my anger toward them.
And so the journey began.
Over the last couple of months, whenever I was upset with someone, and I'd say to myself something like "they always do this" or it would bring up something from the past, I would remind myself that love keeps no record of wrong; and consequently, Jennifer was to keep no record of wrong. This new attitude helped bring healing and forgiveness in my life. Because if I no longer kept the tally I was able to much quicker forgive both past and present hurts.
Then a new thought hit me. Someone said to me simply, "Thank you! I really owe you one." I tried to brush it off and they said, "No I do. I owe you." It disquieted me. Why? Because I felt like if I was doing everything I did to be paid back I was doing it out of an impure motive. And so this thought hit me: Love keeps no record of rights.
If I were to keep a record of all the things I've done to help people, because I truly love helping people and giving of myself, then I would have a long list of things. And what would that do? Well it would puff me up with pride. I'd be able to boast of all the things I do to help people, and isn't Jennifer wonderful. But who'd be getting the glory? Me! So now the things that I'd done to honor God, or just to be kind, have now become a score board. That score board then would lead to unforgiveness in a new way: "Well I've done this and this and this for them and they've only done this for me..." It would make me desire things and become angry at God, thinking that God somehow owed me more than He's given already because of all the "things" I've done for Him.
And so this thought has plagued me... Love keeps no record of rights.
Our job is not to keep score and make sure the tally balances out on both sides. Our job is to love 100% even if the people around us are only capable of loving 50% in our eyes. See our scale isn't to be each other. Our scale is Jesus Christ. He loved with everything. And since He loved with everything, how dare we cheapen His sacrifice, by doing any less!
Love keeps no record.
