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What Color is Love Black Friday – Really? - November 23rd, 2018

What Color Is Love

Black Friday – Really?

November 23rd, 2018

I don’t get into the mad house of holiday shopping. I tend to avoid it like a plague. I couldn’t have this year even if I so desired, but I did what I typically have done for several years and that is to take ‘Black Friday’ and make it my ‘Relax Friday’.

As I considered this and the events of yesterday on Thanksgiving with all the love that was flowing freely at our gathering that we shared, I began to think that maybe the reference to the Friday following Thanksgiving might better be named something other than the color black which is representative of the retailers transition to profits, black ink in their ledgers’ instead of the red ink.

Here in the USA we note a day when the average American has earned sufficient funds to pay their tax obligation. It is referred to as ‘Tax Freedom Day’, so the tracking of when we go from red to black ink is consistent with us, the question is just who’s ledgers are going from red to black and when.

But as I pondered the love that we all shared yesterday, I began to ask the question of just what color denounces love for us. Of course, I thought of red roses and bright red hearts, but quickly I dismissed that as ‘The color of love’.

I realized that the color of love is something else and perhaps is not a color that we have yet to be revealed to us.

Perhaps No Color at All

As I started this devotional this morning, I became aware that a young man was dead this morning as the result of a shooting that took place at a local mall late yesterday in the Pre-Black Friday Sales. The contrast to my earlier consideration of love was stark and coldly searing. On young man, 21 dead, another 18-year-old in critical condition, and a 12-year-old girl with a gunshot wound to her back, why this senselessness?

Maybe love doesn’t have a color at all. Perhaps the only color that can be ascribed to love is the abundance of color instead? The violence associated to shopping post-Thanksgiving Day, is totally absent of love and therefore colored with emptiness.

Just yesterday, we were saying…

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name. For the Lord is good, and his faithful love endures forever; his faithfulness, through all generations. Psalms 100:4-5 (CSB)

In celebration and adoration of God’s faithful love. What a stark contrast.

Perhaps a better designation for today might be ‘Love Friday’. It might be better if we were celebrating it by not going shopping, pushing each other out of the way for another deal, not fighting with each other, but continuing the sharing of love that came with the thanksgiving of yesterday. What if we could maintain this love celebration right through the weekend to Sunday when we gather in worship to our Lord and Savior. This would be a much better use of our time and so much more serving of the Master who tells us in no uncertain terms to love as he loves, forgive as he forgave, and to live our lives as his Disciples.

Each year the push of the retailers intensifies, and the throngs build to an ever-increasing multitude, for what? So that merchants can see their bottom lines show a profit for the first time in the year?

No, it’s even lost that meaning and become devoid of color, over shadowing the day of thankfulness we designate.

Let’s eradicate it from our lives and replace it with a love full of color and contrast.

Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (CSB)

Let’s start a new tradition today and going forward to come out of our celebration of thankful Thursday and color the Friday afterwards with love, God’s love!

We really don’t need to be scrambling to acquire gifts and bargains, because we have the most wonderful and lasting gift right now, today, in our grasp, love.

Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love — but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13 (CSB)

Let us color today and every day with love, because the color of love isn’t something we see until it covers everything.

Blessings, kip…

Created By
Kip Carter
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