The Greatest of These

It isn't fair. It isn't fair for people like my favorite tv personality, Robin Roberts, to be facing the health challenges of a lifetime - on top of losing her mother. For a best friend to lose someone way too young to cancer. And for another friend to lose a grandparent. And for another friend to lose her home to a hurricane.

These storms and heartaches and trials leave us broken and lost and can make us realize two things.  It can make us see just how unfair life is.  Or it can make us see just how great our hope and our God is. The heroes, the conquerors, the victorious ones - they are the ones that you will find saying “It’s just four walls with a bunch of things”. Or “We prayed for healing and we got exactly what we prayed for. Our sweet friend is healed because now she is Perfect and in a Perfect Place.” Or, as Robin Roberts quoted at her medical leave farewell on Good Morning America, "Life provides losses and heartbreak for all of us - but the greatest tragedy is to have the experience and miss the meaning."  

We have Faith in a God who is Good and Perfect and Able. And some day our Faith will be our sight.  We have Hope in a Life and a Beauty and a Kingdom. And our hope does not disappoint (Romans 5:5). And some day our hope will be fulfilled. And we have a love that is sustaining, full of Life, and purpose-giving. And the greatest of these is Love (1 Cor 13:13). Why? Because it is eternal. Some day our faith will become our sight and our hope will be fulfilled. Neither of these will exist in heaven. But our love? The reason why we were created – to be in a relationship of love with Him – it will exist forever.

And so, for now, we cling to our faith and our hope, but we live because of our love. Because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). Because when you come to know the God that He truly is, you can’t help but do anything other than love.

And we question. While He listens. And we wonder. While he whispers. And we hurt. While he heals. And we keep on loving. And he keeps on loving perfectly. He heals our wounds. And by his wounds we are healed.

So we notice the man who asks for money and we return grocery carts for the woman with four children and we take time to get lost in the wonder and imagination of our kids. We call our moms and dads just to say that we love them. We cancel plans to stay home and watch Andy Griffith with our children. We drive with our radios turned off and stay up just a little bit later to talk to our spouses and go out of our way to make sure that every single person whose fingerprints are on our hearts know that they are a part of us. We love a little stronger and look a little higher and pray a little louder. Because when we are shaken, we stand on a Solid Rock. And when our lives are falling apart, we are stripped down to the heart of who we are. And because Love lives in our hearts, Love is all that we have and all that we are.

We aren’t just brave. We are faithful. We aren’t just optimistic. We are hopeful. And we don’t simply become heroes. We become more than conquerors. Through him. That loved us. (Romans 8:37)