Love is not the syrup that you put on top of the pancake, it is the dough, the yeast that gives sustenance, form and nutrients to the meal. It is the Bread of Life, broken for us.
Love is the vitamins in the bone broth. It is the fertilizer, stinky, hot and rich, that causes the tree to grow. A healthy tree, by the rivers, with healthy green leaves, which produces the most delicious, succulent fruit. Rooted and grounded in love, it becomes a strong solid, tree of righteousness. So, love is the root, love is the grounding, the firm grounding. The winds can come and the storms can lash and whip and even knock off branches or leaves, but the tree, rooted and grounded in love will withstand it. That tree will become the refuge for the birds, the wild animals.
So too, are we becoming, as in Psalm 1, trees of righteousness. That tree produces righteous fruit. Love, joy ,peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control. This fruit takes time, watering feeding, and growth. But it will come, if fed the right fertilizer, watered, and tended. It will come, as we guard against the thieves of it. The rodents that would wound and tear and, if not dealt with, will leave it for dead. That fruit will come.
What's the point of this seemingly overreaching metaphorical mess? It is this : In all we do, in how we live, in how we act, in where we help, or drive, work or play; it is all worthless, unless it's done in love. Whether we live or move or have our being, if it is not done in Love, it's at best a bump in the road, maybe fun to some, but it will throw you out of alignment. At worst, a train wreck,
Without His love, we can lead a people off of the path, into seeming freedom, only to find themselves dredged in the muck and torn up by the briars.
Love God's love, is the stuff that makes character. It is like the roots, deeper than a feeling, it is the stuff out of which lasting commitment, willingness to lay down ones own agenda for another's good, is made.
And ultimately, love will rule the day. Love will come through a season of death, of sacrifice and find that the feelings of delight, desire, and, the other fruit, will again come. Because love, true love, is stronger than all other. feeling
This this that part that gets mistaken for the syrup. This, true love, bears fruit. Not syrup. (unless it's a maple tree, then the sap, but let's not get sappy)
God is love. Love never fails.
This is therefore, one of my regular prayers:
14 For this reasonI pray before the Father, 15 from whom [a]every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner [b]self, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the [c]saints what is the width and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to all the fullness of God
Eph 3:14-19Psalm 1; 1 Cor. 13;
