Tag Archives: Bible

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Love is Not a Currency

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If I ever write a book, I think it’s going to be called Lies People Tell You. Because there are a lot of them, and it would be easy to come up with new chapters.

There’s a lie out there that says we can run out of love.

That’s not true.

Love is not a currency. Let me repeat that: Love is not a currency.

You can’t run out.

I wrote a post about a week ago about reading I Kissed Dating Goodbye. I have one major problem with the book – the assumption that love is a resource we can waste. In the first chapter, Joshua Harris tells this story about a girl’s nightmare. She’s at the altar on her wedding day and as her husband is saying his vows, all of the girls he’s slept with start walking and standing around them. I’m rather sure love has nothing to do with all of this.

I think the reasoning for this kind of fear comes mostly from Proverbs 4:23, which says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring  of life.” Nowhere does this verse say “guard your heart or else you won’t be able to give it to your future spouse.” But that’s how a lot of us read it. And, certainly, sometimes it feels like that’s what’s true. We fall in love for the first time, and when it ends, it feels like we will never be able to love at that level again. That’s all just faulty reasoning, though.

I think we are supposed to guard our hearts because we are special and valuable, not because our hearts and our love are finite. God wants us to share our specialty and value with people who deserve it, people who have earned it. That makes sense to me.

We have been offered everlasting, infinite love. The least we can do is offer that to others.

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I Wish I Went to High School with Isaac

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I don’t talk to many of my friends from high school anymore. It’s a bit of a shame because they are all really cool people, and they would all probably be a really good influence on me. Most of them are all super responsible, routinely get to bed before midnight, and know what they want to do with their lives.

I do this thing, though, when I am having a bad day. I cyber-stalk all of my high school friends. I do it because it makes me feel worse about myself. It’s the same line of reasoning that makes girls watch chick flicks right after they have been dumped. My high school friends are all incredibly put together people who are mindful enough not to be internet downers. It’s probably not true that their lives are perfect (because no one’s is) but that’s the way it seems to me.

It’s all really self-indulgent and annoyingly embarrassing that I do all of this.  I probs shouldn’t even be sharing it with you.

Anyway, I was reading some Genesis the other day. And I got to the part where Isaac meets Rebekah for the first time. A little background for you:  1. Isaac was 40 years old when he wedded Rebekah. I’m not sure how the whole maturing into adulthood thing worked in the Bible because, you know, people were living to be 175 and stuff, but we have that whole movie The Forty Year Old Virgin. That movie is funny because it is absurd to think that someone so old would be a virgin.

2. Isaac didn’t know Rebekah was coming. Abraham (Isaac’s father) sent his servant to find his son a wife.

So for over fifty verses leading up to the meeting, the narration has been focused on Rebekah. We don’t know what Isaac is up to. And the first mention we get about him is this:

Now Isaac had returned from Beer-lahai-roi and was dwelling in the Negeb. And Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening. And he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, there were camels coming. (Genesis 24:62-3)

Isaac was meditating when Rebekah came! He wasn’t worrying that as a forty year old he was doomed to be alone. He wasn’t stressing out about if he was ever going to get married. He wasn’t waiting for a wife. He wasn’t cyber stalking his friends and self-indulgently comparing himself to them. No, he was meditating. He was spending time with God. He was enjoying a beautiful evening.

I think I should be a bit more like Isaac.

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Justin Timberlake is the Eye to My Little Toe

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Apostle Paul used to be one of my least favorite writers in the Bible. I think I was kinda using him as a scapegoat. I could just kind of pawn all of the stuff that I didn’t like about the Bible off on him. That wasn’t very fair of me. Paul didn’t have it all that well. He was kinda being attacked wherever he went, and he had multiple parties trying to kill him. He was imprisoned a seemingly infinite number of times, and he lived most of his life alone with very few companions. But through all of that, the man is still one of the most loving and gracious writers that has ever lived.

I am finally starting to build an appreciation for this incredible man. It’s through no action of my own. A lot of people have been graciously walking me through it. But I was with a group the other day and we were talking about this passage Paul wrote, Romans 12:3-21. I don’t know if you are religious or whatever or how you feel about Jesus or whatever. It doesn’t really matter. Romans 12:3-21 is still just amazingly good. It would take me like centuries to talk about the whole thing, but I do want to talk about 3-8. So that’s what we are going to do.

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

This is one of the most comforting passages I have ever read. Paul is telling us that we don’t have to do everything. We just have to do the stuff we are good at doing and then do it really well. I often get it into my head that I need to do everything. When I see people doing things that I can’t do and doing them really well, I get jealous. For instance, I want to be a performer sometimes. I fantasize about dancing, playing music, or acting in front of thousands of people. I really really really want to be Justin Timberlake.

The truth is, though, that I’ve not been blessed with the performance gifts. But what I can do is talk about complicated things in a way that a lot of people can understand and jive with. (Although, JT can probably do that as well. At least, he makes people jive.) While that may not be as glamorous as bringing sexy back, Paul says it is just as important.

Paul compares the Church to a human body. None of us is all of the body, but we are all a part of it. Just because the eyes get to see the world doesn’t mean that the little toe is any less important. Do you think the little toe ever gets jealous of the eyes?

What do you bring to the table? Tell me what you think. Would you like to see more posts where I talk about Apostle Paul and Justin Timberlake?