Love and Wisdom

Jim:

Proverbs 4:1-27
The fact that our daughter is about to graduate from high school makes this reading especially meaningful for me today. Soon she will enter college and be faced with challenges and choices that will determine a great deal about her life. For nearly 18 years her mother and I have had the privilege of offering her what wisdom we could and what council we thought best. But the greatest source of hope I have for her is that she has been raised in the church where she has been exposed to greater wisdom than her mother or I could have offered alone. She has heard us preach, yes, but she has had others to teach her Sunday school classes, and others to sponsor the youth group, and others who have visited with her at pot lucks and church gatherings. It is the collective wisdom of that community, blessed by the Holy Spirit and centered on God in Jesus Christ, that I believe will serve her best. Her life will not be perfect, but she knows that God loves her and she knows there are people of faith who genuinely care for her. This is how she will “keep straight the path of (her) feet” (v.26a).

1 John 4:7-21
I’ve got most of this passage underlined in my study Bible for various reasons. But just today I have underlined verse 21: “The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” And what a challenge this is! I can honestly say that I have hated very few people in my life, and mostly when I was a child. Now that I’m an adult I can rationalize my antipathy toward others without calling it hate. But if I am to love God, truly love God, I’ve got to recognize the imperative to love my sisters and brothers, no matter how difficult that may be. And by love I believe the writer of this passage would mean to have genuine concern and compassion for. This means that it is my responsibility to love even the people who cut me off in traffic, or who vote for “the other guy,” or who, regardless of their motivation, cause me pain. Clearly this is tough work. But then, who ever said the way of the cross is easy?