Baggage Claim — Dirty Clothes - Tuesday
Today’s Verse
1 Corinthians 13:4-5
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. (NIV)
“Hey, man. I messed up. I should’ve listened to you…”
Working primarily with teenagers, I get this phone call a lot, especially from young men. As we sat down for lunch the following day, I couldn’t help but appreciate his honesty.
“She and I didn’t set good boundaries. Now we both feel terrible. You were right—you were right about everything…” After a long pause and a few bites of food, he looked up at me.
“So…I guess this is the part where you say, ‘I told you so’…huh?”
There’s no joy in saying “I told you so” to a young man who’s made all the same mistakes as you have. Choosing my words carefully, I did my best to comfort him. “No—I’m sorry this happened. I’m sad for you. I know it hurts. And, most importantly, Jesus still loves you...”
In Luke chapter 22, Jesus had the perfect opportunity to look at Peter and say, “I told you so”—in fact, he literally had told him. Peter probably didn’t believe Jesus when he said he would deny him three times, but there he was—in the courtyard just hours later—weeping bitterly because he’d done just that.
As these friends locked eyes with each other, it would’ve been easy for Jesus to arrogantly shrug at Peter, mouthing the words: “See? I told you so!” But that wasn’t Jesus’s heart for Peter. It isn’t his heart for you, either.
No, if I had to guess, the look Jesus gave Peter that morning probably said something more along the lines of, “Peter, I’m sad for you…I know this hurts…I still love you…” Because he did.
Love doesn’t say, “I told you so.” In fact, according to the Apostle Paul, love doesn’t do a lot of things.
Love doesn’t boast, it isn’t proud. It doesn’t get easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. In other words, love doesn’t do a lot of things we would usually do. At least the love of Jesus doesn’t.
But the best thing we can do, especially in the midst of our deepest shame, is to approach Jesus’s love honestly and say, “I messed up. I should’ve listened to you.”
When we do that, we’re met with the kind of love that corrects but doesn’t condemn, and the kind of love that never fails—even when we do.
REFLECTION
Read 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. How can you demonstrate this kind of love to someone today?
