What flows when YOU are pierced?

"When I am pierced, what flows from within me? Is it pride, hate, frustration, impatience; or is it kindness, patience, long suffering, or love?"  As I prayed/wrote in my journal, this kept coming from my lips:

"How do I respond to life's hardness - with grace and gratitude? Or with discontentment and pettiness?"

Psalm 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
Psalm 139:24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Psalm 141:2 Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips. 

Psalm 73:26 My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.

1 Corinthians 13:4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 
1 Corinthians 13:5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 
1 Corinthians 13:7  Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 

Love is kind;  is not easily provoked, and beareth all things.
Those words/phrases seemed to jump out at me during my Bible reading the other day.

I always thought I was a kind person; helpful, useful, patient. But then when I read that "love is kind" I realized that I fell way, way short.  Yeah I may help someone with their bags, or open the door for an elderly person, but do I do any acts of kindness to those who persecute me?  Romans 12:14 says,

Bless them which persecute you: bless, and cures not.

Bless them.  Maybe I could do that part...the "not cursing" part is a little (well, a LOT) harder for me.  I tend to vent often...like all.the.time when something is said that is hurtful.  Let's face it, it hurts to get hurt by something someone says or does.  But while I want to verbally curse them, God calls me to bless them. 

I hate to admit it, but I am a very easily provoked person.  I allow the offender's comments and/or remarks to sink deep within causing bitterness to root and form.  When I read that love is not easily provoked, I realized that my actions and responses have not been out of love, but rather out of tolerance and that is not Christ-like.  My Lord and savior died a horrible death for me so that I may live eternally.  If He did that for me surely I can act out of love towards a hard person, can't I? 

Again, bless them.  Love them.  Feed them. 

Give them drink if they thirst.  Love, pure and holy IS kind; patient, long suffering, and so much more!  Just read Paul's letter to the Corinthians (chapter 13) and then go back and read the life and ministry of Jesus - very powerful!

Beareth all things.  Notice here that Paul doesn't say "love beareth some or most things", but rather it bears all things.  I'd say that that covers, well, everything!  

This is another area where I struggle greatly, for I tend to throw a pity-party when things don't really go my way.  Now, I don't throw myself on the floor and scream and pout like a 2 year old.  But I do go to God with it - well, that is I try to - and I pray for a better attitude!

I am so grateful to God that He continue to lovingly chastises His servants.  Even though I don't like it I must remember Hebrews 12:5 and 6, which say,

And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 

For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 

Prayer: Lord, lead me in the way of everlasting! Whenever I am pricked, let Thy goodness seep from within.  Let love, Thy love, take hold of my every thought and deed.

Blessings in the risen King,
Sarah