"We Teach What We Most Need to Learn": What I Most Need

As I write the summer devotions for my daughters, I'm reminded every moment of Parker Palmer's great words, "We teach what we most need to learn." 

When I get to the devotion that asks the question, "What does it really mean to love someone?" I find myself teaching my own heart the truth all over again. 

I write to the children what I'm learning in Romans 12 myself.  This isn't just for you. This is because I need to learn this.

Romans 12 tells me that real love is sincere. It's devoted. It honors others before oneself. It blesses. 

Sincere, devoted, honoring, and blessing.  I'm failing at this!  Lord, help me! 

I think about sincerity for the whole afternoon.  Sincere people speak genuine words at all times.  They don't flatter to get people to like them. They don't say things they think others want to hear.  They aren't concerned with just making people happy or manipulating people through words. 

Instead, they speak and behave out of genuine feeling. 

We teach what we most need to learn.  Today I realize that I most need instruction in the fine art of sincere loving. I want to sincerely love--genuinely, without pretense, without fear, and without manipulation. 

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Have you felt sincerely loved?