Love - Not A Sentimentality

We spend another day meditating on the thought that Agape love is not only patient, but kind. Those who are patient, but not kind in their patience, show something less than Agape Love. The kindness that divine love brings with it into our personalities enables us to give back kindness when life is not kind to us. It means we are not just negatively patient but positively kind in the midst of the patience. A well-known hymn puts it this way:

Able to suffer without complaining
To be misunderstood without explaining
Able to give without receiving
To be ignored without grieving
Able to ask without commanding To love despite misunderstanding
Able to turn to the Lord for guarding
Able to wait for his own rewarding.

This kind of love, it must be noted, is not maudlin sentimentality, it is tough as well as tender, strong as well as sensitive. People who do not know better may think of it as a clinging vine, but actually it is a sturdy oak, gnarled but not bowed under the storms of life. I tell you, a love that is patient and kind is the most formidable thing on our planet.

Prayer: O Father, as the violet leaves its perfume on the heel that crushes it, so let me leave the perfume of divine kindness on all who may hurt me this day. In Jesus' Name I ask it. Amen.

"Be kindly affectionate one to another...in honor giving preference to one another." Rom. 12:10.

Be encouraged,

**********************Letter # 9 (2. 3. 2003)*******************