Trust the instrument panel

"He thought his plane was horizontal but in reality it was plunging toward the Ocean." A pilot of a major air line was explaining to the class I was in what the expression "flying by the seat of your pants" meant. The pilot explained how a person's instincts can tell them one thing while the instrument panels gives them a completely different picture of the position of the plane. He suggested that when the two are contradictory trust the instrument panel.

Sometimes I get confused about very basic things. It's almost embarrassing but I wonder if it's true for other people as well. One of the most basic instincts I can be confused about is how to express love. Maybe it's because I was a child in the 1960's when this was a hot topic.

Sometimes what I feel is right and what the Bible teaches don't line up. I can be going in the opposite direction of Biblical teaching and feel like I'm going in the correct direction. It's times like these I need to stop and look carefully and prayerfully at my instrument panel and change my course accordingly.

This happens almost every time I read 1 Corinthians 13. This morning I was looking at the part that says,"Loves always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." I had memorized it a little differently, "love bears all things". Either way the truth of the matter is I didn't know what it meant.

In trying to gain a better understanding I looked the Greek word and found, "Beareth all things - Παντα στεγει. This word is also variously interpreted: to endure, bear, sustain, cover, conceal, contain." It went with 1 Peter where it says," love covers a multitude of sins". It was a picture of a roof that keeps the rain out, or of a ship that keeps it's cargo safe. I see this picture of love as a vessel were something is safe and protected as apposed to Plato's picture of a fool's soul which he said was like a sieve.

One of the translations I found said," She knows how to be silent." The "she" was love. Love seems so simple but when I look at it's description in 1 Corinthians 13 I see that love is so much more than an instinctual feeling!

Lord Jesus, when what I feel is right conflicts with what your word says is right grant me the grace to obey your word.