love

When I got up this morning, my mom handed me a short article that she had randomly found on her desk that she thought I might find interesting. I don't know where she got it from or why she thought of me when she read it, but she did, and it really hit me in a deep and intimate way. I wish that I could find the words to articulate what has been going through my head over the last month so that you could really understand how much this meant for me this morning, but I know this much - it was an answer to prayer from God. He is so good. :-)

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I Corinthians 13 - A Guide to Culture

If I speak in the tongue of a national, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I wear the national dress and understand the culture and all forms of etiquette, and if I copy all mannerisms so that I could pass for a national but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give all I possess to the poor, and if I spend my energy without reserve, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love endures long hours of language study, and is kind to those who mock his accent; love does not envy those who stayed home; love does not exalt his home culture - is not proud of his national superiority.

Love does not boast about "the way we do it back home," does not seek his own ways, is not easily provoked into telling about the beauty of his home country, does not think evil about this culture;

Love bears all criticism about his home culture, believes all good things about this new culture, confidently anticipates being at home in this place, endures all inconveniences.

Love never fails; but where there is cultural anthropology, it will fail; where there is contextualization, it will lead to syncretism; where there is linguistics, it will change.

For we know only part of the culture and we minister to only part. But when Christ is reproduced in this culture, then our inadequacies will be insignificant.

When I was in America, I spoke as an American, I understood as an American, I thought as an American; but when I left America, I put American things away.

Now we adapt to this culture awkwardly, but He will live in it intimately; now I speak with a strange accent, but He will speak to the heart.

And now these three remain: cultural adaptation, language study, and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

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A long time ago I remember my dad saying once, "God does not call the qualified; He calls the willing, then He qualifies them."