Puffy People
Knowledge
puffs up, but love builds up.
Anyone
who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge;
but
anyone who loves God is known by him.
1 Corinthians
8:1-3
If what Paul
says in First Corinthians is correct, then we have a lot of puffy people in the world. If knowledge – not just knowing something,
but knowing you know something – puffs up, then how puffy and empty and full of
ourselves we all can be.
We know a
lot. We’re an information soaked sponge
of a culture. It gives us the illusion
of control and power. We feel safer
because we not only know, but we know we know.
We have degrees to prove it. We
can outsmart colleagues and neighbors, family and strangers, supporters and
enemies alike. And if not, and we feel
threatened by their knowing and their knowing about their knowing, we can
outsnark them and puff ourselves up on negative energy.
Love,
though, is different. To love another
person – accepting and caring for them without needing to change them first –
means letting go of control, moving out into open waters, and letting the winds
take you where they will. Love is
about knowing you don’t know much of anything, but you are willing to be a
beginner, a student of life. Love is
when your ego deflates and you don’t mind because it’s finally not about you,
and you discover what a relief that is.
The real
knowing and the real love are from God.
We do not know much, but we are known fully. We do not love much, but we are loved through
and through. We get pretty puffed up in
ourselves, but God deflates our egos and brings us back to what we were made
for: loving God and each other, not with
inflated selves, but with love that builds up a community of mutual care.
Lord, help us not to know too much, but to
love much. Help us not be empty and
filled with air easily deflated, but solid and sturdy enough in Christ to be
part of the house of love you are building, from Jesus, the foundation, on up
to the joyful rooftop.
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