Feelings carry us away.  It is easier to serve when we feel good about it.  It is easier to bring breakfast to the pretty wife who laughs at all our jokes.  It is harder to feel great at 74 when our spouse has dementia, needs their diaper changed and can’t remember who we are.  Some of us accept that trials will come as we grow old together, but what when they come and we are young?  What when we feel abandoned or misunderstood?  Is love patient when it receives impatience?  Does love hope when receiving no trust?

1 Corinthians 13 and its definition of love is as strong a challenge today as it ever was.  It is nothing to fall in and out of.  We decide to love and then we live out what we decide?  How is this possible?  God sustains his own.

1 Corinthians 13: 4-7

 ⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Questions

1. What things is love?
2. What things is love not?
3. What does love always do?
4. Who do you love?
5. Who could you love more?  How?

Going Deeper

Read Jane Eyre.