His promises

I love this photo!  I loved it when I took it a few years ago, but it has since grown in meaning for me and I treasure it.  

I added the definition of love from 1 Corinthians 13 to this image and had it blown up to poster size, which I hung in my home as a reminder about how to be loving.  I did it at a time when I felt I wasn't being loving enough to people around me and I needed a visual reminder to have a better and more loving response and attitude. 

That passage was read at my wedding a couple years ago and probably a month or two into our marriage, I printed out a smaller (page size) version of that poster and hung it in our kitchen.  We've since moved and that same image is now in our bedroom, a regular reminder to me of what TRUE love us.

To love like that is only possible through God.  He loves us like that - it is His kind of love, agape love.  To love unselfishly, with patience, kindness, goodness, forgiveness, etc is not a human thing to do - we all naturally think of ourselves first.  But through His transforming spirit, I believe we can love like this if we ask Him to daily fill us with this love and His Holy Spirit.  I ask Him to fill me to overflowing so that this true and genuine love might flow through me and onto those around me.

This is a love that loves regardless (and even despite) of the actions or response of those being loved.  I'm still working on this in my own life -- I am learning and growing.  I'll share more about that in another post.

Back to the photo.  Although I selected this image to make my poster about love, the rainbow is not so much a symbol about love about a symbol of promise.  God's promises.  To us.

I will put my rainbow in the clouds to be a sign of my promise to the earth.

Genesis 9.13 GW

As I go through difficult times, this image reminds me of God's faithfulness. He keeps His promises. His love never fails.  No matter how bad things get, I know I can trust Him to be with me as He has promised.  I know He will guide me and help me because He cares for me. HE LOVES ME.