Over Thanksgiving break I picked up a new "hobby", not knitting, but crocheting. I really love it! I decided to make scarves for my family and a best friend to give them as Christmas gifts. As I kept crocheting, and began getting faster at it, the list of people I wanted to make scarves for grew and grew! I also decided to do some experimenting by taking two different colors of yarn and putting them together in the same scarf, the result was beautiful! As I thought of the time I have spent crocheting over breaks, spare minutes, and even during finals weeks, I thought of how well it really illustrates friendship.
What is it that makes you feel close to someone, maybe even the first time you meet them? You have a mutual understanding and connection somehow? What makes you do something kind for someone else? What makes you think of them, instead of yourself? What makes you send a text message to a friend? What makes you send a letter to a friend? What makes you say I love you? How did you get close enough to them to even call them your friend?
It's something that makes you feel close together even when you are miles apart...it's the commitment to keep in touch - even if it's not convenient....it's that feeling that you have a lot in common with someone even when you just meant them, because your love is founded in the same place - Jesus Christ. Something deeper than a feeling, something deeper than what you enjoy....a principle....a decision....a lifestyle.....It's living by Jesus' commandment. It's adding to your faith, "virtue, and to virtue knowledge; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity." (2 Peter 1:6-7)
As I was going over 1 Corinthians 13, I was impressed by something in the first verse. "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." (Verse 1) Being a musician, I have often wondered the significance of this illustration. What is it about Charity, that, without it, all the lovely words I could say are just like a tinkling cymbal? It finally hit me...there is not flow, no rhythm, nothing to hold the piece together and make it musical. That's what love is - it holds things together, it makes a beautiful melody.
Love, brotherly kindness, it's all apart of the knitting together process...it's the bond of Christian, it's the glue that holds us together, the blessed tie that binds.
"For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ....That He would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith;
that ye, being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ,
which passeth knowledge...."
-Ephesians 3:14, 16-19
"By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples,
if ye have love one to another."
-John 13:35
No comments:
Post a Comment