Choosing to Love

"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....It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

The kind of love you have to choose is selfless love.  It is the kind that takes work.  It is the kind that keeps marriages together, friendships going after many years, relationships going within families.  It is difficult.  It is challenging.  It is the kind of love God speaks of in scripture when he tells us to "love your neighbor as yourself" Leviticus 19:18. 

It is not the easy kind of love that makes you feel giddy when you start falling for someone.  It is not the kind of love that makes a mother's heart swell when she looks at her child(ren).  It is not the love that we so often talk about in our daily lives - I love pizza, I love my dog, I love this song. 

This kind of love takes conscious effort.  It requires that sometimes we make the choice to do what the other person wants instead of what we want.  It requires that we put our husband/wife/child/neighbor before us on a regular basis.  It requires that sometimes we have to do something we just really don't want to do. 

My husband and I have been struggling with this kind of love.  Our relationship has been going through a difficult stage.  We've been blaming it on a lack of communication, but just yesterday afternoon, we both came to the conclusion that it actually is just selfishness.  We are both letting the selfishness that is so natural to our sinful natures come through.  And it has been eating away at the relationship we have spent the last 15 years building. 

Each of the things the verse in 1 Corinthians speaks of is the opposite of what my sinful nature wants to do.  When I am choosing not to love, I am not patient, I am not kind.  I do envy, I do boast and I am proud.  When I am choosing not to love, I am rude, I am self-seeking, I am easily angered and I do keep record of wrongs.  When I am choosing not to love I can hurt those I love, I don't always trust or hope or persevere. 

I must choose to love on a daily basis - my family, my friends, my neighbors.... 

The only way I am able to choose to love daily is through the love of Jesus Christ.  In my own strength I will fail every time. 

But with Jesus, I can succeed.

In His Grace...