1 Corinthians 13

I had a chance to go home this weekend and spend some time with family and friends. It was so great to see everyone and share some stories from Ethiopia.  It was a very beneficial time for me as well because it allowed me to debrief more intensely and really reflect on what God taught me while I was in Ethiopia...

I experienced poverty and death first hand while in Ethiopia, but I want to share with you what I learned about love and life.  You would think that spending so much time with people who are constantly faced with the reality of death and who are never completely sure of where their next meal will come from would be draining.  Instead it was the most alive I’ve ever felt.  My heart has come alive in a new way because I now understand more deeply what love really is.  Love is not hanging out with 15 boys who live under a bridge after their parents abandoned them, love is not picking up a tiny child and telling her in a foreign language that she is beautiful, love is not singing songs with orphans for an afternoon and teaching them new colors, and love is not travelling to Ethiopia in order to work alongside a church reaching out to the lost and dying.  Those are all great acts, but if it’s not done out of the overflow of what God is doing in your own heart it’s nothing.  Not once did I have to ask myself if doing these things was the right thing to do I just loved without reserve.  These kids loved me back no questions asked.  Not only that but they loved each other in a way that was overwhelming and challenged me.  

Talk about caring for one another.  One night we had the opportunity to take 15 street boys out for dinner. They live underneath a bridge near the church in a make shift tent.  It was great to be able to feed them and dance with them, but my favorite part was when 2 boys got their food before everyone else and they just sat there.  We told them they could go ahead and eat, but they wanted to wait until everyone got their meal.  Then they all offered their food before they took the first bite.  These are children that are not guaranteed food everyday and I expected them to devoir their food, but they care for others in such a sincere way that even food to their empty stomachs does not make them want to eat unless everyone will have something to eat. To them it’s not about “me”, it’s about “us”.  

As I reflected on my trip to Ethiopia and the love I saw and experienced I was brought to 1 Corinthians 13 which sums up what I’ve been feeling:

 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I understand that passage in a way I never did before. I see faces when I read those words.  All of things that my team was able to be a part of accomplishing was great. We painted rooms, we gardened, we taught children, we helped make jewelry, we partnered with other believers in doing amazing things for the Kingdom, but none of that matters without the love that flowed out of the love we have for Christ because he first loved us.  I will forever be changed not only because of what I saw and experienced, but because my heart actually feels more full. I left Ethiopia more alive.  No pity, just love; no poverty, just joy; no depravity, just hope; no death, just life.  Ethiopia is a beautiful place...maybe not for it’s amazing technology and incredible buildings, but it is beautiful for its love.  Love that despite death chooses to be alive and present.