Agape is something of the understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men.

Those who sowed with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves. Psalm 126:6–7

I have been reading this morning about love. Love in the hard situations. And of course, my little yowling cats in their broken rudeness no way stack up against the evils of ISIS, but as I slowly work my way through the Jesus Loves ISIS thirty-day prayer guide “Because Love Never Fails,” I am reminded of what is true.

And I reread Martin Luther King’s “Love your Enemies” sermon because I think it is the most beautiful thing ever.

Take me past the outer courts

Into the Holy Place

Past the brazen alters

Lord, I want to see Your face

And today Nicole and Cate and I are going to meet before school to pray for our little Thunderbirds. We are going to pray that God will bring them into the calling that He has for their lives. We will speak over them that God has good for them and that they will seek Him with all of their hearts.

But even more, I will pray that I will be filled with the power of love, the power, the redemptive power of love. And I’m foolish enough to believe that through the power of this love somewhere, men of the most recalcitrant bent will be transformed.

The most recalcitrant bent. Ah, fourth period, here we come.