We have been studying the Fruit of the Spirit in our Sunday School class, and just finished love. I came across this quote about love in my daily devotional and had to share it because it touches on so many of the ideas we’ve been discussing. When we fail to forgive and love, the we torment and hurt ourselves more than anyone else.
“Every relation to mankind, of hate or scorn or neglect, is full of vexation and torment. There is nothing to do with men but to love them; to contemplate their virtues with admiration, their faults with pity and forbearance, and their injuries with forgiveness. Task all the ingenuity of your mind to devise some other thing, but you never can find it. To hate your adversary will not help you; to kill him will not help you; nothing within the compass of the universe can help you but to love him. But let that love flow out upon all around you, and what could harm you? How many a knot would be untied by one word spoken in simple and confiding truth of heart! How many a solitary place would be made glad if love were there; and how many a dark dwelling would be filled with light!”
Orville Dewey, Unitarian Pastor
Lutheran Ladies Connection 