The truth is that we live in a harsh and cruel world and only God’s love is pure. Only He stays with us to the end no matter what we are going through. Only He is faithful. Only He loves us for what and who we are and not for what He can get out of us.
Permit me to enrich this contribution by sharing what I describe as the seven lessons for abundant life. The first is that without God there is nothing and with God there is everything. The second is that if you help ten people in life count yourself lucky if one returns to say thank you and count yourself lucky if only one of the ten betrays you.
The third is that you must trust no-one because it is those that are closest to you that will hurt you the most. The fourth is that you must never write off or despise anyone no matter how bad their situation because you don’t know what they may become tomorrow. The fifth is that you cannot afford not to help your friends and you cannot afford not to fight your enemies.
The sixth is that true knowledge and insight is gained not by the best secular education or even by life’s many experiences but rather it is gained by divine revelation.
The seventh and final lesson is that you must conquer your fears and no matter what you are going through: be positive, be happy and hold on to your faith in God knowing that He that created you is quietly working His purpose out for your life and He will never forsake or leave you either in this life or in the life to come.
Seven is the number of perfection so let me stop there but if you can hold on to these seven home truths you will go far in life and nothing will hold you down.
Permit me to conclude this contribution with the following counsel. In love, pain and the mystery of separation never forget that when your loved one fails you and decides to leave, as painful as it might be, the Holy Spirit and the Balm of Gilead is more than able to heal your wounds and make you whole again. You will live to love another with equal measure and that love will surely be returned because everyone has their very own life-partner waiting for them out there somewhere. It is just a matter of finding him or her.
If your lover or spouse chooses to leave never forget that if he or she is truly yours and if it is the will of God, one day, no matter how long it may take, you shall surely be together again because what is truly yours shall always return to you. If that doesn’t happen and it doesn’t work out that way just give God the glory and give your love to another because the one that left was clearly never yours in the first place.
If needs be just take the pain and move on. Yet if you ever find your true love and you are sure that it is God’s will for you to be together, never let go no matter what because if you do so you may never find it again. Despite all it’s complexities and pain love still remains the greatest gift that God ever gave to humanity. And nothing describes the essence of true love, or what is known in Pentecostal circles as ”agape love” (meaning the power to love even the unlovable), as the beautiful words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 1:13.
He said, ”If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
