The message in 1 Corinthians 13

1 Corinthians 13. The love chapter of the Bible. It's what popped up on my devotional book today. Verse 12, to be exact. Interestingly, just yesterday I had a conversation with a friend about the mistake of taking single verses out of context and trying to make them work in your life - of using the Bible to justify your actions, choices, or thoughts. So today I was like Let me just read this whole chapter.

I'm so glad that I did...

As a master manipulator, motivation behind behavior has always been a key factor in how I chose to act. Even the way I said or wrote things was a way to get what I wanted. It's so embarrassing to admit this, but what good would it do to keep it a secret? I'm glad I tell people upfront now. I want them to know who I was and who I am now. I'm monitoring myself minute by minute now because I choose a new route. No way I could do this on my own, which is why I've chosen Christ's path instead of the main road I didn't even realize I had been taking for forty-two years. 

But how? you ask. Oh trust me when I say this has been a lengthy and painful discovery and an even more lengthy and energy-expending labor to monitor. We are talking minute-by-minute monitoring, my friends. The way it must be done is by checking my motivation in everything. And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING.

Me picking out clothes:
Me: I think I'm going to wear these yoga pants today with this tee shirt.
Holy Spirit: Why?
Me: Really? They're yoga pants, for Pete's sake.
Holy Spirit: Why?
Me: Ugh. Fine. Because they're comfortable and I only have three pair of pants that fit.

Holy Spirit: That checks out. Carry on.  

What does this have to do with 1 Corinthians 13? As I read this morning, my mouth dropped open as I read the very first verse.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become as a sounding brass or a clanging symbol. 

 Now many interpret this verse as a report on the importance of love. Love is so important. Without it most things just sound like things, but with love there is meaning and beauty in everything. But after reading the chapter and relating it to my life, I feel like the Holy Spirit has charged me to evaluate everything I say and do and measure it on a love meter. Many who have done any life reevaluation know that there are two widely accepted emotions from which all other emotions stem: fear and love. God's wish for us is to approach everything with his eyes. Peer through his lenses of love. Then and only then should you choose your next action, word, or thought.

So often we react to somebody or something without even considering why or where our motivation stems. We just react. Much of what we do is instinctive. I can recall times during my teaching career that I couldn't remember half the day at the end of the day because I had been on autopilot. I was out, and yet the lives of hundreds of teenagers rested in my hands daily. Notice how I said considering where OUR motivation stems. There is nothing you can do about the motivation of anyone else, and so focusing our attention on another's motivation is a waste of energy.

I've been given gifts, including the gift of guidance. I revel in the fact that my piano teaching ability goes way beyond my ability to actually play the piano. And so I teach. But daily I'm being tapped on the shoulder, and there's the Holy Spirit standing there with an eyebrow raised asking me that same irritating question - Why? Why do I teach? Do I teach out of fear that I won't make enough money to support myself and my babies? Or do I teach because I love my job, my students, music, and my babies enough to sit at that piano five plus hours a day and teach? And if it is solely fear-driven, how can I change my choice so that it begins to focus on the love aspect of it and not whether the next student remembers to bring me a check?

It makes a HUGE difference, friends.You can do the same thing for a hundred different reasons, and the results will not be the same. The energy you put into anything will inevitably cause the energy behind the action to produce results that - wait for it - have the same energy! True story! "Garbage in, garbage out", as they say. Love in, love out.

So how can you really make this work? Can one really approach scrubbing toilets or inputting data at work with love? Sure we can! It's more difficult to do that than it is to approach snuggling with a child on a couch or going on a date, but it is possible. The trick is to remember WHY we do these things and to search for Christ in everything. View things from his lenses. Pray constantly that He will provide you with the ability to see him in even the monotonous or terrible tasks. Honestly, the Lord has allowed me to see lessons in things that I've done this year that I had never even CONSIDERED. See things through curious eyes if you can't find the love. What comes next? How will God use this to teach me to grow?

When you think about each and every task as a growth experience or a learning experience, something starts to shift, and before you know it - even those tasks seem filled with a little more love. Namaste.