During this year of training, I have the privilege of living in close community with about 50 students, interns, and staff who share the same vision and values for seeing churches established among unreached language groups across the world. We've walked through classes, language acquisition, chores, time in the community, sharing space, and wrestling with our futures together. We've grown to share deep convictions about the primacy of our task to carry the gospel and the cost of time, suffering, and self that it will require. My classmates are incredible saints, and 24/7 sun-up to sun-down life together is this extrovert's dream — what could possibly go wrong in our mini-Eden?
Turns out the same thing as the first Eden — sin. MY sin.
"If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." 1 Corinthians 13:3
These words became so real to me this semester as I realized that I could joyfully look forward to giving up some of what I have on the field but not hold back a passive aggressive comment when that one guy left his dishes in the sink again. I could willingly die for the sake of the gospel but not inconvenience my schedule preferences when a friend needs me to stop and talk.
"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels" — if I carry the truth of the gospel to the farthest corners of the earth — if I "understand all mysteries and all knowledge" — if I'm well equipped with seminary level theological training — "if I have all faith so as to remove mountains" — if I believe rightly that Jesus can establish the church…
But have not love… I am nothing.
Oh friends, I wish I could tell you the grief that I have felt at my own selfish and hateful heart. And I wish that I could say that I have it all sorted now — that I turned it all right around in a moment and am now the picture of gentle, sacrificial love for all. As always, I wish that I had been sanctified yesterday, but God in His perfect ways is teaching me slowly.
I'm so grateful for grace-filled brothers and sisters who patiently love me as I learn to love them better. I'm so grateful for saints all over the earth who are faithful examples of 1 Corinthians 13 for me to follow. And I'm so grateful for a gentle Spirit who whispers to me in my countless love-less moments "as I have loved you, you also are to love one another."
