Grumpy Me, Grumpy You

1 Corinthians 13:5 Love is not rude, it is not selfish, and it cannot be made angry easily. Love does not remember wrongs done against it.

Some days, I’m grumpy. Some days, you’re grumpy. Grumpy me, grumpy you. Hopefully it’s not too often, but it happens. How do you behave when you’re grumpy? What does it feel like for those around you?

We all know what it feels like to be around a grumpy person. It’s not all that nice, is it? In fact, if we can at all avoid Mr or Mrs Grumpy that’s what we do. 

And yet we rarely think about what it’s like for others when we’re the grumpy one. All we know is that we’re in a foul mood and they’d better get out of our road. Any sense of self-awareness that we might have had flies out the window. So just in case you find yourself in one of those moods in the near future, let’s try this on for size:

1 Corinthians 13:5 Love is not rude, it is not selfish, and it cannot be made angry easily. Love does not remember wrongs done against it.

Right there you have the four primary symptoms of grumpiness: rudeness, a selfish attitude, a hair-trigger anger and let’s not forget the desire to hang onto that feeling, to mull over the wrongs done to us that got us here in the first place. 

Am I right? Isn’t that what we’re like when we’re grumpy?

But according to God’s Word, love is none of those things. It’s not rude, it’s not selfish, it can’t easily be angered and it doesn’t focus again and again on the wrongs done to us. 

#NoteToSelf: Remember, next time I’m feeling grumpy, love isn’t any of those things. I’m called to love those whom God’s given me to love. 

That’s His Word. Fresh … for you … today.