When my understanding fails...

From Paul's first letter to the Corinthians:

Love never fails. 

But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.




Elaborating, from the aptly-called Amplified Version:

Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end]. As for prophecy (the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), it will be fulfilled and pass away; as for tongues, they will be destroyed and cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away [it will lose its value and be superseded by truth].

For our knowledge is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect), and our prophecy (our teaching) is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect).

But when the complete and perfect (total) comes, the incomplete and imperfect will vanish away (become antiquated, void, and superseded).

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; now that I have become a man, I am done with childish ways and have put them aside.

For now we are looking in a mirror that gives only a dim (blurred) reflection [of reality as in a riddle or enigma], but then [when perfection comes] we shall see in reality and face to face! Now I know in part (imperfectly), but then I shall know and understand fully and clearly, even in the same manner as I have been fully and clearly known and understood [by God].

And so faith, hope, love abide [faith--conviction and belief respecting man's relation to God and divine things; hope--joyful and confident expectation of eternal salvation; love--true affection for God and man, growing out of God's love for and in us], these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Get it, Teci? (Yup.)

Relieved... Because a few weeks back there was a lesson about the heart being deceitful and/or so easily deceived... Ah, how then can a deceived person be aware that she is deceived...?

Thank God for God --- because He still is the Way, the Life, and the Truth. He teaches us all things and guides us into all truth.

My being mistaken doesn't mean I'm always mistaken. It doesn't mean I'm hopeless; it doesn't mean I'll never get it. We all make mistakes. But little by little, by God's grace, we get wiser. We get a small part of the truth today, perhaps another little part tomorrow. In time, we will see God face to face --- a full revelation --- and we will be able to know (Him) fully (or at least as much as our finite vessels can handle). We are already fully known to Him.

Well, that explains that. Now back to work ==> teaching college physics  ;)


P.S. Note to self: I'm not a child anymore.