Day 3- Better Together

In today's reading there was one sentence that really struck me.

"The essence of love is not what we think or do or provide for others, but how much we give of ourselves."

Wow! How profound. I think that often times we guage how well we are doing at loving at the amount we have given. Whether it be time, resources, money or prayers.. we try and add up all of those things and somehow rate ourselves on a scale of Good Love.

At tonight's membership meeting, Ben spoke about the 6 different mission projects that SPCC will be focusing on over the 40 Days of Community. It was beautiful to hear where God has called us to serve and refreshing to hear Ben say that he does not expect us to get involved in every single one. It isn't about the number of organizations we help or prayer requests we pray about or the number of dollars we give or hours we serve. It is about giving ourselves-- giving REAL LOVE.

For some people, $500 a month to a mission project is no skin off their back because they make a ton of money. For others, they must make sacrifices in order to give $50. For a retired woman, volunteering at the soup kitchen for 10 hours a week may be easy to fit into her schedule, but for a single mother with a full time job, she may need to sacrifice some time to volunteer for one night.

It is not about how many pats on the back we get. It is about sacrificing for others. Going back to my last post.. it is about giving up a bit of our perfectly planned time and energy and money to benefit someone else without expecting anything in return.

I am looking forward to the rest of the 40 Days of Community where I will grow and learn to better love God through showing other people real, true, undeniable, unselfish, compassionate love.