Unselfish Love—the Beat Goes On

by Rhonda Rhea @RhondaRhea

Now that all my children are adults, I can tell you that raising the five of them was very often like a game of full-contact musical chairs. Without the chairs.

            

It wasn’t so much about the wrestling—though believe me, there was plenty of that. But it was more about the music. Always even more of that. All three of my sons are in music ministries now and the two daughters are musical too. 

When Daniel, my youngest, was around twelve, he started drumming. He drummed on tables. He drummed on notebooks. He drummed on chairs. On his desk. On his dinner. On his sister. I don’t think there was any noun in his life that wasn’t a drum. I remember when we made cookies, the cookie sheet would suddenly become his drum. Okay actually, that one was more of a cymbal, but still. Percussion. Everywhere. All. The. Time.

Several times a week when my left eye would start to twitch—on the beat—I would say something like, “Son, do you even know you’re percussing?” He would look down at his hands, as if to, indeed, verify that it was true. It was always true.

It makes me wonder how many things I do without thinking even today. No doubt there are a gazillion annoying habits I’m not aware of that are causing eyes to twitch left and right.

Oh, that the Lord would grow me to the place where the things I do without thinking more often bless than annoy. In 1 Corinthians 12:31, Paul says, “And I will show you an even better way,” (HCSB). The Amplified calls that “even better way” a “still more excellent way, one of the choicest graces and the highest of them all: unselfish love.”

Then Paul begins the “love chapter.” Love should be a way of life for those of us who follow Christ. Loving others selflessly should happen as naturally and rhythmically as those tap-tap-taps on the table—loving almost without having to think about it—empowered by His indwelling Holy Spirit.

Verses 4-8 in that chapter tell us what that kind of love looks like:  “Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not conceited, does not act improperly, is not selfish, is not provoked, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends,” (HCSB).

How important is our sacrificial love for others to our Heavenly Father? We’re told in 1 Corinthians 13:1 that we could speak every language on earth—we could even speak the language of angels. But if we don’t love others, even “Angel-eese” sounds like a bunch of annoying noise. As a matter of fact, it says that without love, even if I’m speaking the sweetest language there is, “I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” The last thing I want is to cause a twitch in the eye of the God I love.

Lord, let me love others simply because I so love You. By Your enabling, may I love through You. Consistently. Steadily.

That’s my prayer. And I’m praying it happens all the time. Without missing a beat.

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Rhonda Rhea is a humor columnist for lots of great magazines, including HomeLife, Leading Hearts, The Pathway and more. She is the author of 10 nonfiction books, including How Many Lightbulbs Does It Take to Change a Person? and coauthors fiction with her daughter, Kaley Faith Rhea. She and her daughters host the TV show, That’s My Mom, for Christian Television Network’s KNLJ. Rhonda enjoys traveling the country speaking at all kinds of conferences and events. She and her pastor/hubs have five grown children and live in the St. Louis area.