“Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. Love still stands when all else has fallen.” ~Blaise Pascal
The most difficult steps on my personal stairway to love involve passing beyond the steps of judgment and self-righteous thinking and living. For the most part I am able to step beyond these life paralyzing steps, but when I’m struggling I usually need to take a step back and remind myself I am not God.
How about you?
1 Corinthians 13:1-13:
If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
If you are struggling right now. In other words if you always seem to be at war with the world. Try reading and reflecting on the words from Paul above, every day for 30 days. You might be surprised at how your heart will soften.
Life is too short to not love.
P.E.A.C.E.
