something on my heart...

So tonight I was doing my devotions and I was reading 1 Corinthians 13, the “love chapter.”

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a“⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
⁸ Love never fails.”

I realized tonight that there are more parts to love than most people these days seem to realize...it can become deeper than just enjoying someone when they’re in a good mood and tolerating them when they aren’t, and occasionally letting a car turn in front of you when they’ve been waiting for a very long time. This list seems to be in order from basic concepts to much more difficult concepts. Maybe, these concepts are listed this way so that we can start at the beginning and work our way to the next one as we master each one until, by building one on top of the other, we get to the end of the list and master the whole essence of love. I think, by building one thing on top of the one before it, we’ll learn more and more about love until we finally “get” love.

It seems like a lot of people understand or at least attempt the “nice” parts: patience, kindness, and protection. While being patient can be hard, it isn’t necessarily the most difficult thing in this list, but it demonstrates love to someone else. Being kind isn’t too bad as long as the other person isn’t too weird, is nice back, and doesn’t take advantage of you for being kind to them. Here’s the thing, kindness doesn’t depend on the recipient, it’s an action done out of love. And protecting people you love is a natural instinct. But protecting someone who, let’s say, didn’t do anything wrong and is getting punished for it anyways is a little more difficult, but it, too, is an action done out of love.

They tend to have a much harder time avoiding certain behaviors which is discouraged here: envying, boasting, being proud, being rude, being self-seeking, being easily angered, and keeping a record of wrongs. All of these when avoided can demonstrate to someone else that you love them. I want to focus on self-seeking in a minute, but I’ll come back to it.

Verse 6 talks about not delighting in evil but rejoicing in the truth. Most people hope that others are honest and truthful with them, but sometimes struggle with being honest and truthful with others. Many people struggle even more with the first portion of the verse. Somehow, we as Christians find it very hard to stand up for our faith by learning to not enjoy evil. We get caught up in the emotions of everything and somehow lose our sense of right and wrong and what we believe.

Verse 7 talks, in addition to protecting, about trusting, hoping, and persevering. Trust seems to be an issue for a lot of people; either they trust too quickly or they never fully trust. Hoping and persevering seem kind of go together. Take marriage for example, when their relationship gets tough the couple will either decide to remain hopeful and persevere through their problems maybe even through outside help, or they part ways and agree to disagree usually without near enough thought as to what it will do to their kids.

Verse 8 says that love never ever fails. Personally, I think God’s the only one who’ll ever attain that depth of love for others…I mean maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think I’ll ever not fail at some point in the way I show love for others, and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have a regret or two about how they’ve loved someone.

Okay, so I said I’d come back to the part about being self-seeking or wanting things to only be about you and what you want. It says, “love…is not self-seeking.” Not, “isn’t usually,” “tries not to be,” or “most of the time, tries not to be.” It says that love “is not” self-seeking. I think one of the biggest selfless acts I can think of is pregnancy. Half of the time it wasn’t by choice per se and yet somehow throughout the course of that 9-month commitment a love grows that’s deep enough to allow for the nausea, stretch marks, swollen feet, back aches, labor, delivery, and all that other fun stuff. If all of us could learn that same selfless love and pour it out all over everyone else (and not only on unborn children), our world would change and we wouldn’t still be sitting around on our butts singing songs like Waiting on the World to Change by John Mayer. We tend to pick our college majors, full-time careers, part-time jobs, etc… all based primarily on what we want, or even worse, on what our parents want. We should spend a while finding out what God wants for us…sometimes it isn’t what we think we’re good at or it isn’t the thing we enjoy the most, but if He calls us to do something then He will give us the ability to do whatever it is that He’s called us to. If He says to “major in this,” “work here,” or “go here,” we usually aren’t instantaneously ready to just drop everything in our selfless love for Him, and yet daily He’s calling us to choose to love Him selflessly. He never forces us to do anything because He’s demonstrating that same selfless love. He desires so strongly for us to love Him and yet He never actually makes us choose to do so if we don’t want to. He told us in the Bible where we’ll end up depending on what choice we make and He’s left that choice up to us.

I think that God’s been trying to teach me more about that selfless love. I’ve heard this song, You Can Have Me by Sidewalk Prophets, many times, and yet today is the first time I ever really “got” what the writer was talking about. The writer’s talking about how far we’ve come, in regards to our willingness to follow God anywhere, since Biblical times. The disciples were willing to drop everything and follow Christ, are we? Are we that detached from our own desires that we only want to do what God wants and nothing else? Is our love for God unmoving and unconsuming? Or is it a love that is a willing, selfless love that will follow God relentlessly? Too many of us are stuck in the mud, too afraid to do what God calls us to do regardless of what it is or where it is, unwilling to trust God with the details whether they include debt, an insufficient income, or just having to cut back in ways we’re not comfortable with. Did God ever call us to live comfortable lives? No, He called us to be radical people, wholly devoted to Him, following Him no matter where, to live out His patient, kind, humble, polite, selfless, calm, level-headed, Christ-like, protecting, trusting, hoping, persevering, and never failing love. There are a lot of different parts of love in this list, but I think I’m finding that selflessness may be one of the keys to unlocking that mysterious thing called love. It’s never about you; it’s always about the other person.

You Can Have Me
Sidewalk Prophets

If I saw You on the street
And You said come and follow me
But I had to give up everything
All I once held dear and all of my dreams

Would I love You enough to let go
Or would my love run dry
When You asked for my life

When did love become unmoving?
When did love become unconsuming?
Forgetting what the world has told me
Father of love, You can have me
You can have me

If You’re all You claim to be
Then I’m not losing anything
So I will crawl upon my knees
Just to know the joy of suffering

I will love You enough to let go
Lord, I give you my life
I give you my life

When did love become unmoving?
When did love become unconsuming?
Forgetting what the world has told me
Father of love, You can have me
You can have me

I want to be where You are
I’m running into Your arms
And I will never look back
So Jesus, here is my heart

When did love become unmoving?
When did love become unconsuming?
Forgetting what the world has told me
Father of love, You can have me
You can have me

When did love become unmoving?
When did love become unconsuming?
Forgetting what the world has told me
Father of love, You can have me

My Father, my love
You can have me