1 Cor. 13:4,7 Love is patient. Love is kind. It bears all, it hopes all, it endures all.

I just moved. It wasn't as much work as I thought it might be and it went quite well. But moving made me feel like a leaf in the wind again. So dependant on a lot of things I have no control over. I am so glad God is in control in the end. Even where adverse winds seem to blow me into directions I dislike. God knows. He allows. All the pain and frustration. The crushed hopes and shattered illusions and lost days. "Like gold needs to be melted in the fire to be pure, so I need this adversity to be purified, refined, cleansed. - To be honest, as honest as I can think right now - I probably desrve much worse for all the times I denied Jesus, like Peter in the courtyard. Scared for my own skin. My success, my populatity, my survival. That white lie, it doesn't hurt, does it? God will understand. Won't he?
He will understand. He knows we can't help it. We are doomed if left to ourselves. But Jesus showed us a ways to come back: Be forgiven and forgive. Both are not always easy to come by. And I still feel blown around by many hostile winds.
I see pictures of tornados, how they kill or destroy or cause much anxiety and trouble. Whether God's wind or not, winds can have quite an impact. To trust God doesn't come easy or naturally. But I can do it. And so can you.

1 Cor 13:4 Love is kind.

My heart so often seems to fly on every wind coming by. Have you ever felt that way? Scripture says, love is kind. Am I always? What, if my heart gets blown away, when I seem to loose love like a glove forgot on a park bench? And where is God's kindness to me when I am in pain and need, want or fear? Are they God's kindness to me?
Paul wrote, that being in all kinds of suffering is building a godly character. So is it a grace to be suffering? Paul said too: Give thanks for all things. That is not very easy. Not when I am confused and hurting, when the world seems to run a course I cannot follow. Give thanks for pain and sorrow? Even feeling honored because they are God's kindness to me?
And what about those around me. When someone is really in need and pain, suffering, be it on the outside through torture or hunger or nakedness or be it on the inside through loneliness, depression or abuse. Can i say: Rejoice, this is God's kindness to you? For we know, that God loves at all times. Many have postulated that as a huge problem. Why God allows so much pain.
If now I say, it is even a grace and a kindness, will I laughed at or cut out like Jesus was? Maybe that's the reason why they did put Jesus on the cross. Too strange seems this. Too much is our live circling around well-being in this desolate place of a world. And if that suffering where the road to heaven, could I embrace it as God's kindness to me? Could you? God is love. So we should take all from his loving hand with thanks.
The happy times and the times we feel sorry for ourselves. Maybe that is a big sin. For it would doubt God's eternal love.

1 Corinthians 13:4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

It is often difficult to love those that are closest. So much easier to give to some noble cause. But God asked Cain: Where is your brother? He held Cain accountable. Rightly so. For in envy Cain had killed Abel. He had thought himself allright and when God did not accept his offering and instead took Abels, Cains anger burned hot. What had Abel done to deserve God's favor? Scripture doesn't talk much about it. It says, that Abels heart was in his rightful place. Did Cain offer to God to be known as a good man? Did he despise his younger brother? Have they been children together, playing, talking, dreaming of great things to come? Nothing mattered any more when Cain took his brother out in the fields and slew him. 

It is a huge trap for any of us. Envy, pride, anger. God asks us to be humble, patient and kind. That's what his kingdom is all about. Not about ruling, but serving. Not in words, with a fanfare and pretty comments, but in quiet obedience. The greatest reward lies in this. Being able to be patient and kind, without boasting and envy and pride. That's where heaven begins, for me, in me, around me. Though Abel suffered, it is Cain who is to be pitied for he could not find peace in his heart. Which is the greatest good of all. The one thing worth to be live for, to be sought after, to be cherished and taught.