Nothing else matters.

The book I’m reading  - The Good and Beautiful God by James Bryan Smith – suggests for today's exercise a lectio divina reading of 1 Cor. 13. 

Put simply, that means you’re supposed to read a passage over and over, slowly (hard for Type A!) and ask God to make some word or phrase pop out.  Then you’re to explore that concept more deeply.

What popped for me is this:

Nothing I do for God – no amount of service, sacrifice, effort or energy – matters if I don’t love.  And the passage doesn’t say if I don’t love Him…it just says if I don’t love.   I wrote it in my journal:  LOVE.  NOTHING ELSE MATTERS.

It dawned on me, then, that it’s also true of marriage.  Nothing I do for Neil - no amount of service, sacrifice, effort or energy  I expend in being a “good wife” – matters if I don’t love.  The key to the Christian life and marriage is the same:  Love.

Cliché, I know.  But it led me to thinking.  If love is all that matters, what does this love look like? 

Which led me to reading the rest of I Cor. 13. 

Yikes.

Which led me to deciding that for this week my only prayer will be:  “Help me love.”  I’m going to pray it over and over again…dozens of times a day. 

For this week at least, nothing else matters.