a timely word on... love...

A devotional book... caught my eye... one I haven't picked up in a while...

Turning to today's reading... I found a timely word... on love...

Love Wants Clear Relationships 

Love does not bear a grudge. It approaches others anew each day and with new love, and it forgets what has past. In this way it makes itself a fool and the object of people's mockery, but this does not drive it crazy --- it just continues to love.

Is love then indifferent to right and wrong? No, it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in truth. It wants to see things the way they are. It would rather see hate and wrong and lies clearly, than all kinds of masks of friendliness, which serve only to conceal the hate and make it even more hateful. Love wants to create and see clear relationships. It rejoices over truth, for only in truth can it love anew.

"It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things" (1 Cor. 13:7). Here it all depends on this all things; it is uncompromising --- all things here really means everything. Perhaps we say sometimes in a grand moment, "I will do everything for you; I will leave everything for you; I will bear everything with you" --- yet in this there is always a big, tacit presupposition: if you will do the same for me. This presupposition is unknown to love. Love's everything has no condition: it is unconditionally all things.

--- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I Want to Live These Days with You

Affirmation... of the lesson on bearing the agony... while retaining the affection... the lesson from the prodigal God... the Father who pours out love... profusely... abundantly...

But how to relate... in the now... What does that look like...?

When I see loved ones flounder... do I advise...? offer guidance...? check on progress...?

All I see in the parable... is a father who allows... the son to get to the bottom... as low as can go... and just watch... but of course... he didn't have cell phones... email... no way to contact the one far away... so what does that long-distance relationship look like...?

Struggling with how to relate to those on whom I wait... I hear some guidance...

Love rejoices over truth... only in truth... can it love anew...

Truth... as found in God's Word... I can relate... through His Word...

So today... a Word sent... a truth... that perhaps the Father will use... to speak... to the loved one... far... away...


Related fare...
considering... a question about the Father...