Vicki,

I love that. That's loving!

Thanks for sharing it.

Love,
Pat Ferguson



At 03:04 PM 11/8/04, you wrote:
>This came to me via another list.  Thought it was well worth sharing.  Hope
>you find it as thought provoking as I have.
>
>
>
>LOVE: A PARAPHRASE OF 1 CORINTHIANS 13
>If I talk a lot about God and the Bible and Church, but I fail to ask about
>your needs and then help you, I'm simply making a lot of empty religious
>noise.
>
>If I graduate from Bible college and know all the answers to questions
>you'll never even think of asking, and if I have all the degrees to prove it
>and if I say I believe
>in God with all my heart, and soul and strength, and claim to have
>incredible answers to my prayers to show it, but I fail to take the time to
>find out where you're at
>and what makes you laugh and why you cry, I'm nothing.
>
>If I sell an extra car and some of my books to raise money for some poor
>starving
>kids somewhere, and if I give my life for God's service and burn out after
>pouring
>everything I have into the work, but do it all without ever once thinking
>about the people, the real hurting people - the mums and dads and sons and
>daughters and orphans
>and widows and the lonely and hurting - if I pour my life into the Kingdom
>but forget
>to make it relevant to those here on earth, my energy is wasted, and so is
>my life.
>
>Here is what love is like - genuine love. God's kind of love. It's patient.
>It can
>wait. It helps others, even if they never find out who did it.
>Love doesn't look for greener pastures or dream of how things could be
>better if I just got rid of
>all my current commitments. Love doesn't boast. It doesn't try to build
>itself up
>to be something it isn't. Love doesn't act in a loose, immoral way. It
>doesn't seek
>to take, but it willingly gives. Love doesn't lose its cool. It doesn't turn
>on and
>off. Love doesn't think about how bad the other person is, and certainly
>doesn't
>think of how it could get back at someone. Love is grieved deeply (as God
>is) over
>the evil in this world, but it rejoices
>over truth.
>
>Love comes and sits with you when you're feeling down and finds out what is
>wrong.
>It empathizes with you and believes in you. Love knows you'll come through
>just as
>God planned, and love sticks right beside you all the way. Love doesn't give
>up,
>or quit, or diminish or go home. Love keeps on keeping on, even when
>everything goes
>wrong and the feelings leave and the other person doesn't seem as special
>anymore.
>Love succeeds 100 percent of the time. That, my friend, is what real love
>is!
>
>David Sanford
>
>David Sanford serves as adjunct professor of journalism at Western Baptist
>College (
>www.wbc.edu
>). David and his wife Renée are co-authors of the
>400 pages of devotional application notes in the Living Faith Bible