Early in my high school career, my younger brother decided to take up the art of drumming.  At that time, we lived in a house that had an attic space above our bedrooms.  And that, my friends, is where he decided to house his drum kit!

I’m sure you’re connecting the dots at this point and can imagine the noise I had to contend with.  My bedroom, my place of daily repose and sanctuary, had turned in to a full-on extension of a Van Halen practice session.

It was bad enough that my brother had picked the drums as his hobby of choice, but when he added cymbals to it, my oversized 80’s stereo headphones became my new best friend.   The CLASH CLASH CLASH as he practiced went right to the top of my internal cringe list, rivaled only by fingernails scraping an old-fashioned chalkboard.

While his practice paid off and my brother has gone on to be quite an accomplished drummer, I periodically think about those early days, and am reminded of I Corinthians 13.  According to that chapter, clashing or clanging cymbals is precisely what we sound like if we don’t speak with love. 

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal…and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” (vs. 1 – 3 NKJV)

So many visual and understandable images in these verses paint such a clear picture of the heart of this incredible passage – no matter WHAT we say or WHAT we do, if it’s not said or done in love, we are nothing.

The love referred to in these verses is not talking about the ooey-gooey emotions that folks typically confuse for love.  It is agape love – God’s love in its highest and purest form.  It’s the kind of love that has to do with the concern for the well-being of another.  It’s the kind of love that Jesus demonstrated when He hung on a cross dying in our place.

Right now in a world filled with chaos, dissonance, and plenty of “clanging cymbals”, the call to speak with love, act with love, and get love right is more critical than ever. 

How can we do this today?  How can we, as Christ-followers, speak love into the inharmonious situations around us? 

Be slow to speak and quick to hear.  When you do speak, let your words be infused with God’s agape love.  Let your actions be motivated by God’s agape love.  Be part of the healing and unifying salve that this world so desperately needs as you let Jesus use you to demonstrate His agape love!

Until next time, Grace and Glory!