When Love Is Real

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.”
Romans 12:15 NASB

The summer before my eighth-grade year I made friends with a guy named Larry. He was new to town, so I encouraged him to go out for our school football team…

The result was a good news-bad news scenario. The good news? He made the cut. The bad news? He won my position. I tried to be happy for him, but it was tough.

A few weeks into the season Larry fell off a motorcycle and broke a finger. I remember the day he stood at my front door holding up his bandaged hand. “Looks like you’re going to have to play.”

I tried to fell sorry for him, but it was hard. The passage was a lot easier for Paul to write than it was for me to practice. “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.”

You want to plumb the depths of your love for someone? How do you feel when that person succeeds?

1 of 365 devotionals in Grace for the Moment, Volume 2
Originally printed in A Love Worth Giving

Mirrored:

How do I feel when a friend indeed succeeds? Of course I feel happy for them but sometimes, jealousy also steps in. I guess the lesson we all have to learn is to detach our view of ourselves and the things we have to gain from what our friends are going through. Let us measure ourselves with the effort we have exerted instead of what the people around us have attained through their’s.