When my kids were in preschool and early elementary, we moved to Nashville to serve an urban church. The parsonage was situated on a large hill between the Baptist church at the bottom, where I pastored, and the Methodist church at the top. In the Summers we loved that hill for a homemade slip and slide, we loathed it when kicking the soccer ball, which usually ended up in or near the creek at the bottom of the hill. My son, while learning to ride a bike, took an unfortunate wobble then an uncontrolled turn down the hill. Frozen in fear, he forgot how to use the coaster brakes. Fortunately, he was not injured badly. One of my toddler daughters was in the back yard when I came home from work. She smiled and turned to run to me. I was standing on the asphalt driveway below her and I could see what was coming. She was laughing and running toward me, which in one sense made my day, however, I knew her little legs would not be able to keep up with her quickly growing head and body as she accelerated down the hill. I started saying, “stop!, stop!” and running toward her, but she was just too excited to see her Daddy. She was doing well keeping up with gravity until just before the asphalt and then I saw it happening in slow motion, but I still couldn’t get to her in time. She fell face first on the driveway and her little head bounced when she hit. I finally got to her an instant later (which seemed like an eternity) I scooped her up and waited for tears. Surprisingly there were just a few, but she did have a scrape and pumpknot (hematoma) on her forehead.
Don’t you hate it when you see the life choices of someone you care about that will lead to a big crash? You do all you can to warn them: “Stop! Stop!” but they just don’t yet understand all the forces at work in this world. When Paul was encouraging the Corinthian church, he could see that they were highlighting one Spiritual Gift over all the others. Even something as good as a Spiritual Gift could be used as something bad and divisive for the church. Speaking in tongues became the gift that if you didn’t have it, you were not one of the cool kids at church. Those who had it considered it so important they forgot that when we belong to Jesus, love is the most important thing. Paul tells them, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”(1 Corinthians 13:1) Paul knows what is coming, that the evil forces at work in this world are going to take even this (and other) spiritual gift(s) and use it against the church. Those with the coveted gift will be filled with pride and those without it will feel belittled and devalued. Both, in their immaturity, will forget that love is greater than any gift. They will forget how it is like them to act toward those around them. Paul tells them, “Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.” (1 Corinthians 14:20) Paul loved the Corinthian church, but they were forgetting Who they belonged to. When we see an unavoidable social, emotional, Spiritual train wreck coming in someone’s life, like when an adult child chooses the wrong friend group, or significant other, or career choice, sometimes all we can do is try to tell them to stop. But then we gotta be ready to scoop them up and love them “no matter what” as they heal even if they don’t yet understand why they should stop.
Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!
