Hallo dear reader, I don't know about you, but I am often challenged by these words of St Paul. Do I do everything 'in love'? Yet when I let these words really enter my heart, they are also a wonderful 'measure' to see if I am aware of God and His Word at any moment. Its easy for me to get carried away by my head knowledge and thoughts, and forget the wonder of the soul and spirit and the Love that unites us in ourselves, with God and others.
I wonder if you were brought up believing that knowing the rules and/or answers was making you 'right' and able to cope and survive with the people around you. Then circumstances change and we discover that those rules we learned don't apply with other people, or situations. This happens frequently with those who teach us, because they have authority, and we are likely to perceive ourselves as wrong! (Thats when those destructive thought like 'I'm bad at maths' creep in. ) Confusing ??!! Then circumstances change again and people want us to know things and do things they can't or don't want to do themselves! And frequently we find ourselves able ..even to do maths when we are serving others!!
This mix of being enabled, even expected to know things and make sense of things so we can act, and being dis-abled by 'experts' of one sort or another, goes on through our lives. We grow, by God's grace through the gifts He gives us in order to serve people, at work, at home or in people centred activities. So we constantly need to let go of the security of our 'knowing' in order to learn other things that people need. Sometimes we are re-learning what we already know, or we are required to learn inner 'skills' of obedience and unity in love.
Can you imagine if everyone in a kitchen, though trying to help, was doing their own thing!! I once went to live for three months in a l'Abri community in Switzerland. At the time it was the nearest experience to living a monastic life I'd ever had. The basic rules for weekdays were that you worked in the community half a day, and studied half a day, except for Thursdays, when everyone had to leave the premises. On Sunday morning everyone attended church, taken by one of the 'workers'; and on a Monday morning was the prayer meeting for bringing before God the needs of the community.* All meals, apart from the sandwiches taken out on a Thursday, were eaten either in one of the communal dining rooms, or in the home of one of the staff members. This included breakfast which at least once a week was with your tutor's family, and another time with one of the other staff families.
Because of the diverse ages and countries of origin of students, all community tasks were tightly prescribed. I was in my 50s when I went while most of the others stating a term, were aged 18 to 26. I had already been introduced to 'the little way of St Theresa of Lisieux' before I came to L'Abri. Thus I knew about keeping silent and humble, in prayer, amid other people having authority and control over what was 'known', particularly in the kitchen!! It was a valuable lesson....made me look at what I thought I knew.... was it really necessary to 'be quicker' when doing 'x'? Or did my way to do 'y' add to the community experience of working together?? There are as many ways of doing a task as there are people with experience.
I found it was fun and bridge-building to learn new ways. I learned to love and accept, and get on with the task as taught. Once I had awareness of an alternative method of preparing some specific food, that I saw would benefit the community work in all dimensions. I prayed for an opportunity to offer my understanding and experience - and waited for the Holy Spirit to work (or not!). When it emerged it was a win-win situation and love was retained unbroken.
I had not had a life-giving community experience as a child, and this time at the community broke open the shell of my self-protecting 'knowing'! I still think their way of doing washing up is the best, but as it requires two sinks and wearing rubber gloves because the 'rinsing water' has to be HOT, I rarely have the conditions to put it into practice. I learned so much about doing things in 'love' - and though obedience to God comes into it, I found that when I 'knew' I needed to accept doing a kindness and dying to my own desire for breakfast with my tutor's family for example, I was able to give my disappointment to God, and He gave me peace and love in my heart to accept the alternative venue for breakfast!!
So in conclusion; I think there are two interpretations of this instruction by St Paul. In the first we seek to do what we know we need to do, whatever it is, with love and gratitude to God, from our hearts. In the second, when we know we are being asked to do something that really challenges our human desire, or capacity for love at that moment, we can still will to be obedient for the good of another, but call out to God for His love to fill our disappointment or lovelessness. Thus in the first case we are drawing on the store of love within us, in the second we call on the Eternal Source of Love to provide for work in His Kingdom.
Dear Lord, You Who came to serve and to bless, help us grow in Grace and Love, that we may surrender our will to Your Divine purposes, and know more of your Love and Spirit alive in us. Amen
*The L'Abri Community has never advertised or asked publically for money since it was founded by Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith in 1955. (When I was there (1993/4) Francis had been dead some years, his wife was back in USA, but one daughter and a grandson were part of the team of 'workers'.) The Monday morning prayers to God for their needs were their simple trust that God would provide for the provision they were making for young people to ask questions about faith, and to live in community.