9.30- I'm not yet mature if...

 9.30-

I'm not yet mature if...

I can enjoy a joke at the expense of another;

I can in any way slight another in conversation, or even in thought.

I can write an unkind post, speak an unkind word, think an unkind thought without grief.

I am soft to myself and slide comfortably into self-pity and self-sympathy; If I do not by the grace of God practice fortitude.

I cannot in honest happiness take the second place (or the twentieth); if I cannot take the first without making a fuss about my unworthiness.

I take offense easily, if I am content to continue in a cool unfriendliness, though friendship be possible.

I feel bitter toward those who condemn me, as it seems to me, unjustly, forgetting that if they knew me as I know myself they would condemn me much more.

the praise of others elates me and their blame depresses me;

I cannot rest under misunderstanding without defending myself;

I love to be loved more than to love, to be served more than to serve.

the burdens of others are not my burdens too, and their joys mine also

With appreciation to Amy Carmichael

Larry Wishard

9.27.24

1 Corinthians 13

13 If I speak with the tongues of mankind and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give away all my possessions to charity, and if I surrender my body so that I may [a]glory, but do not have love, it does me no good.

4 Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. 5 It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, 6 it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 it [b]keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of [c]prophecy, they will be done away with; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away with. 9 For we know in part and prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I [d]became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror [e]dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the [f]greatest of these is love.