There is one word that will offer help and healing to your most important relationships: Love.
Love is relational dynamite that obliterates all obstacles in its path.
Love is an action before it’s a feeling, and it leans into the work of
seeing people change. Don’t be misled: making the choice to love can be
the easiest part of the process. Putting it into practice will require
God’s help and the best you have to offer.
And it will be worth every minute. The powerful profile of love offered in 1 Corinthians 13 closes with this confidence: “Love never fails.” But love never fails to what?
Love never fails to conquer selfishness.
We never have to work at being selfish; it’s just right there, barking
for attention. And nothing brings our selfishness to the surface faster
than living in close proximity with people. Love conquers this obstacle.
Characteristics of selfishness are being impatient, mean, demanding, envious, boastful, unreasonable, and resentful. But love “is
patient and kind . . . does not envy or boast . . . is not arrogant or
rude . . . does not insist on its own way . . . is not irritable or
resentful” (1 Corinthians 13:4–5)
Love never fails to conquer skepticism.
it’s easy to doubt that anything will ever change. But when a family
member or someone you care about disappoints you and you want to bail,
love holds on. Love does not sell out or run away in a crisis. And love
is not skeptical. It believes the best in a person, works for their
good, waits for God’s agenda to be accomplished in their life—and He
uses that love to transform that person.
Love never fails to practice flat-out persistence.
“Love bears all things, believes all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7b)
Because love isn’t skeptical, it keeps moving forward. It doesn’t give
up or keep score. Love tries again, trusts again, and finds a way to
give an opportunity for God to work.
“[Love] hopes all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7c)
Love can hardly wait for someone to become the person God is making
her/him—and amazingly, it does wait. Love is always hopeful, believing
the best, that the Lord’s purposes are being accomplished.
“[Love] endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7d)
In our wounded moments we think, No one will ever do that to me again.
But those words are not a loving statement. When we say them, we’ve
forgotten how desperately we hope others will give us another chance
when we fail. Love is always part of the solution.
When we
choose not to love, we become an obstacle in God’s way. When we choose
to love, we become a tool in God’s hands to transform the lives of those
around us.
Start doing the selfless things, the persistent
things, the hopeful things, the enduring things and you will be
practicing the love that never fails.
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