Small Thinking.

1 Corinthians 13:11

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 childish ways behind me.

I've been thinking about this for a while. 

And I've been thinking especially how this manifests different than I would have ever thought.

Most of all in small people.

Being small equates very well with being a child. And when you speak and think and reason like a small person you are speaking and thinking and reasoning like a child.

But being a small person is my opinion is really just being a righteous person. I'm not talking about righteous in terms of God or religion..

I am talk about believing you are right all the time.

If you circle around your logic so much and rationalize (by very good logic) everything out so that you have mastered life.. 

Think that you can know who a person is in one conversation.  

That you have created a set of rules, a master philosophy, to break down and understand all human interactions.

If human nature and life is boring to you. Then you probably are righteous. 

You have limited yourself to be small, to be imprisoned

to expect exactly what you get out of people.

If you expect to use others you will be used.

If you judge others you will be judged. 

If you are hard on others don't expect them to be easy on you.

People are smart, they know a small person for what they are. 

You never will be surprised by people. You will treat them like the person that you expect and that's all they will ever be to you.

You will presuppose their actions to mean the things you wanted them to mean all along.

And this righteous looks to more and more like weakness.

But then there is faith and grace. What a concept! Now I finally understand.

While we think small of others. While we put ourselves in the confined box of judgement. Preconceptions of our agenda in the world. To control and confine our lives.... moderation in our life, faith in others and grace for who we are as human beings meld into something far greater.. and that is love. 

And love, dear reader, is beyond our control. We couldn't make it small if we wanted.

Never growing up means you never have growing pains. Never growing up means you never have to take responsibility. Never growing up means never taking any leaps of faith. Never growing up means never swallowing your pride. 

Seems likes a win. 

But what good is the comfort of wining so early in your confrontation, your battle with life when you still reason like a child?

Never growing up means never experiencing real love. Never growing up means never seeing life with truth. Never growing up means being confined, being alone..

So we can choose to see only what we want to. Criticize others when they fall. Only conceding to our agendas in life.   

But our lives stay small. 

Very, very small indeed.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,b but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 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 perfection comes, the imperfect 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 childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor 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.