Daily Word of Grace: March 24, 2020
Several years ago I had the privilege of visiting the home of William Shakespeare in England. As you know, in addition to writing classic plays he also wrote many sonnets, brief and beautiful love poems, including Sonnet 116:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments, love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
This is what true love looks like. It is not fickle, but faithful; not but cowardly, but courageous; not ephemeral but everlasting. Above all, true love is unchanging-“love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.” All of this describes God’s true love for you. Scripture assures us, “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow doe to change” (James 1:17). While people’s love for you may fall short and prove fickle, cowardly and ephemeral, God’s love for you remains faithful, courageous, and everlasting. Jesus demonstrated this definitively on Good Friday when he walked “even to the edge of doom”, all the way to Calvary, where he gave his life for you-the most “generous act of giving” and “perfect gift” ever-on the cross, “the ever fixed mark” of God’s unchanging love for you. In these ever-changing times may God comfort you anew with his never-changing love.
Love and Prayers,
Dave
(The “Daily Word of Grace” runs Monday through Friday)