Can we really fathom what Love truly is? Do we know how to live out the principles of love in a Godly way? I believe one of the most key areas of scripture has been severely overlooked and underused. No one takes these parts of the Bible seriously or radically, and I intend to change that. Over the next few days I am field-testing a new challenge I want to call forth later this summer. Right now I am attempting to undertake an in-depth look and perception of 1 Corinthians 4-7 specifically.
The first one: Love is patient and kind.
What does that mean? How can I live this out? Another translation of this is "love suffers long". Oh how quickly I forget this one! I barely even understand what love is, but I get so impatient with people around me. My roommates can be a thorn in my side sometimes (I share a room with someone, which is an added benefit), my coworkers can sometimes get on my nerves, I have to deal with hardships in my family; many different things in every area of my life! Yet I am so impatient and lash out with unkind words instead of learning how to wait. I love Misty's chorus "I'm here in the waiting room, still in the waiting room, life is a waiting room". We need to learn how to suffer through patience and waiting and love on people in every area of life and see them grow. I'm so quick to get angry at someone for doing something that upset me, rather than being slow to anger and continue loving them and watching them grow. My own life is a testimony of this. When I first moved out to Kansas City I was a wreck and a disaster. My first roommates at my first house were absolutely amazing and loved on me and let me have time to grow and adjust to many changes and challenges that come with living on your own for the first time. If they had just chosen to be short and angry with me, I would have never grown. I would've only gotten offended and worsted. If it weren't for them (and my current roommates and friends around me), I would still be a mess. But thanks to patience and kindness I've been able to, and still am, grow.
The patience and suffering of love also reaches other areas of love as well. The Lord knows my desires and my want for marriage and family, and yet He hasn't brought her to me yet. He's teaching me how to wait in patience and trust in Him alone to provide this. He's teaching me how to love, so that when it is time, and God ambushes me with the most amazing and wonderful wife a man could ask for, I will actually know how to love her. I used to have such a selfish view of love: that it was all about what someone can do for me. God has wrecked me from that and is teaching me what true love is: That it suffers. That it waits. That it is kind, not arrogant, not jealous, not rude or irritable. That it truly does bear, believe, hope and endure all things (but all of these are for blogs to come).
Lord, teach me how to love with suffering and patience. Teach me how to trust you in the waiting room. Teach me how to be slow to anger and quick to love. Teach me the patience and kindness in love that I need, so that when you bring forth my wife I might not fail at loving her as your daughter and bride. Help me to love my roommates and coworkers and clients and friends in the midst of situations that rise up in life. Partner with me I pray in loving through patience, in Jesus' name.
