God is Love

Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres

If you remember, way back at the dawn of time (so March), I started this little series into the ever famous 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7. I've decided to finish up with verse seven rather than eight as the context of spritiual gifts versus love is probably another series in itself. 

So, here we are. The final installation of "serious bloggers have labels and blog series" (self-deprecating humour is my speciality).

Love always protects

I can say with absolute certainty that I do not always protect. According to this Pastor's blog post "protect" is more closely translated from the Greek as "bearing," meaning that it bears up under difficulty, and doesn't run away at the first sign of trouble.

I like to think of myself as a pretty loving person but there are days when I am tired and worn out and switch my phone off, log off Facebook and because I cannot bear helping another friend out. 

I found this photo when searching "introvert." I found it appropriate.
Nguyen Hung Vu under CC license

And that's ok. For my fellow introverts we need some people-free time otherwise terrible things happen (like, we get cranky). It's not ideal and certainly not a perfect picture of love but I do know that I can love others better when I'm feeling ok within myself.

Love always trust

This means putting our faith in relationships, in other people and loving them unconditionally. Yeah that's not me either. I'm great at loving people I like but loving my enemies? C'mon Jesus, let's be serious... (Spoilers: He's totally serious).

Sandro Kharazashvili
via WikiMedia Common
under CC license

Love always hopes

To love is to hope, to have faith in seemingly impossible
situations...And with seemingly impossible people. When people close to you are struggling sometimes they can't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Sometimes we need to point them in the right direction, but that doesn't mean they're going to listen. They might want to sit in their dark tunnel for a while (see last week's post). This is difficult, we may become discouraged and start to lose hope too.

Love always perseveres

Similar to the situation above love calls us to persevere in difficult times. To persevere, to endure in faith and in hope. We bear all (protect), love unconditionally (trust), hold to our faith (hope) and we just keep going, keep slogging through and soldiering on (persevere).

That Pastor's post I mentioned earlier describes love as "tenancious" and I think that's a great way to sum up this verse: don't give up, don't give in. And how can I possibly do this? Because Jesus didn't up on me. No matter how many foolish things I do, how much I push and argue and run away He is always there. 

Corrie Ten Boom Flickr under CC license