Love is Patient, and the Grey Havens Song "Go"

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 

- 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, ESV

 

Love is patient. Three simple words, describing an attribute that's as familiar to many of us as the air we breathe. If you've grown up in a Christian home, as I have, then you've learned about the love of God all your life. And you know that the greatest and next-greatest commandments of the Bible also deal with love: firstly, you shall love the Lord your God, and secondly, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. 

The Bible also goes into detail about what love is. In 1 Corinthians 13, we get a rundown of why love is necessary (verses 1-3), what love looks like (verses 4-8a), and finally, why earthly love is just a shadow of the love we'll experience and give in heaven (verses 8b-13). In my school, we're taught the middle section from the first day we arrive. I can recite it at the drop of a hat, I've heard it so much. But the words hold fresh power every time I study them, and they never stop being less true. 

The first attribute mentioned is patience. Patience, that steadfast waiting, graciously allowing for mistakes and boredom. The word "patience" here is translated in the New King James Version as "love suffers long", and that brings a new light to what the kind of loving patience we're supposed to seek after is. Patience is suffering. Love is suffering. Love is waiting through suffering, always holding on, because you know that the suffering and the waiting are all going to be for something. 

Imagine that your friend has hurt you. It's probably not hard to imagine, it happens to everyone (there ain't nobody perfect, no matter how good your friendship is!), and maybe it's happened to you recently. Whether it's unintentional or intentional, being a loving friend to that person requires that you don't just snap out at them in retaliation; instead, a loving friend will patiently suffer the injury or insult, and forgive it. Long-suffering isn't easy, but it's extremely valuable. 

Another aspect of patience is the waiting. The song "Go" by the Grey Havens describes something I'm sure many of us have felt: the wishing for a non-Christian loved one to come to Christ. The song is beautiful, raw, and painful. It's hard to wait for something you're not sure will ever happen; when you really love someone, you want nothing more than for them to know the truth that you do. And the patience is sometimes so difficult. 

"And it can feel so cold / But I'm holding on to hope / That one day your heart will make it home." The song ends on a note of long-suffering patience. Amid the cold of the interim, it's hard to see that someday, all our tears and prayers may come to bear fruit. Holding on to that hope is one of the most loving things you can do, because love is patient. It doesn't just give up on people after a few days or weeks or years. So hold on to that hope, friends, because just like God is patient with us, He can give us the strength to persevere in patience with those we love.

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