Waste of Time

If I speak eloquently, no matter how impressively, but if I don't do so from a loving heart, I'm just wasting time.

If I lecture with power, revealing amazing mysteries, and if I say to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm wasting everybody's time.

If I give everything I own to the poor and even pour out my last breath for them, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, without love I'm bankrupt.

Love is strong and never gives up.
   Love cares more for others than for self.
    Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
 Love doesn't strut, or have a swelled head,
   Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always “me first,”
      Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of other's imperfections,
      Doesn't revel when others grovel,
   Takes pleasure in truth and clarity,
 Puts up with pretty much anything,
    Trusts God always, and looks for the best,
Never looks back, but keeps going to the end.

   Love lives on. Impressive speaking will be over some day; our understanding will struggle and reach its limits. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say is always incomplete. But clarity arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

 When I was a baby, I gurgled and mumbled like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways behind.

    Perhaps like an infant's understanding, we don't see things clearly yet. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, knowing just as we are known!

   But for now, until that clarity comes, we have three things to do to lead us toward that goal: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

      Anything less is just wasting time.