May 26, 2015

 Proverbs 18:22 “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favor of the LORD.”

I cannot believe thirty-one years ago the Lord gave to me the second first best gift I could have ever received. Second first best because the only relationship greater to me than the wife of my youth is the Lord Himself. If it were not for the Lord capturing my heart in Cuba while serving there as a US Marine, I would have never had the privilege of joining hearts with Miss Loretta Smith of Dakota City, IA.

It is interesting how God wants what is best for us but so often we think we know better than God. I praise Him for letting me fail in my early twenties as I went looking for a wife. After experiencing the broken heart syndrome of failed relationships, it was not until I gave up my efforts and seriously starting asking God for my life’s mate that true love was able to start percolating. In fact, I resigned myself not to take another step towards a young Christian lady without it being someone placed in my path so obviously by God there would be no doubt in my mind. Someday I will tell you the whole story, but since today is my anniversary and God’s intervention was so amazing in this area of my life, it would take too much time for the telling of it and I need the time for taking my wife out this afternoon and evening for some time with just the two of us.

 One thing I can tell you which God brought me to learn early in my relationship with Loretta, and which I will long hang on to, is what true love really is.

1 John 4:18 “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment.  He that feareth is not made perfect in love. 19 We love him, because he first loved us.”

True love is fearless and solely based upon the example of the love of God. The difference between true love and false love is as simple as saying “selfless” and “selfish”. True love is predicated upon the selfless Love which first started with God loving us.

John 3:16 “For God so loved us he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth upon Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” 

True love is not about what we can get from a relationship (selfish love) but rather what we can give to it. Why in the world would Jesus love a drunkard of a young man who did not want to do what his Creator wanted him to do? Why would Christ want me? What worth could I bring to Him? Christ loved me and gave to me, a worthless sinner, the gift of life not based upon what He could get, but rather based upon His giving.  If now I have anything to give as an act of love to my wife of 31 years, my six kids and nine grandchildren, it is only because He is teaching me to be a giver rather than a taker. I have also learned there is something I call the love boomerang found in Scripture and in life experience. It is the givers who truly receive. The selfish grasp and lose; true love gives and also receives. If you want this kind of love, it can only first start with Christ loving us and us being the humble recipients of this underserved grace. Then we too can be lovers and give ourselves away for His glory and to the benefit of others.

I thank God for the gift of true love, and also for my wife whom I get to practice that love on.

Ecclesiastes 9:9 “Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labor which thou takest under the sun.”

Because of His Love,

Pastor Schofield (♥ still twitterpated ♥)