illumination

Wednesday February 6^th, 1 Corinthians 13: 9 We don't know everything, and our prophecies are not complete. 10 But what is perfect will someday appear, and what isn't perfect will then disappear. 11 When we were children, we thought and reasoned as children do. But when we grew up, we quit our childish ways. 12 Now all we can see of God is like a cloudy picture in a mirror. Later we will see him face to face. We don't know everything, but then we will, just as God completely understands us. 13 For now there are faith, hope, and love. But of these three, the greatest is love.  Whatever you try to do in the kingdom of God, rest assured that you will not get it completely right no matter how hard you try. So therefore there is no use getting too uptight about it.  Give it your best.  Let love be your guide.  Let God’s love be your illumination.  Remember there is a good deal of danger in trying to do it all perfectly right, the main one being that it is a good excuse to do nothing at all since you really can’t get there.  It is also a way of saying, I am in charge and I don’t trust God to work things out the way God wants them to work out.  Too many of us fall into the trap of trying to use the scripture the way a drunk uses a lamppost, for support rather than illumination (WSCoffin).  In the next life we will get to see what it was supposed to look like, what the panoramic view back shows us, but for now, let love guide your ways.  In doing so, I think you will find that when we do see that great panoramic view, we will see that our few brush strokes were just what was needed in that time and place, and it was God’s hand that was guiding us all along.