I knew the Bible's definition ~1 Corinthians 13:4–8a (English Standard Version) 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. Love never ends. (ESV)...
But I didn't know what it meant in action. I needed a live example outside of words.
I remember reading a King James version that started out like this Love suffers long and is kind; ~and I totally missed the whole meaning and I right away went into 'Oh yes ~ poor me' and thought to myself, 'Well I sure got the suffering part down!' and ohhh how I suffered...
See I always thought of love as a noun-a person place or thing~instead of a verb- an action word-a happening....and I spent more time thinking about how to 'get' love than I did about how to 'give' it...
Loving someone despite. Despite! That's the part that gets
everybody. Despite their disability~ Despite their sin~Despite the fact that they are human and WILL make mistakes! Man it's a hard thing to do. When someone hurts you or wrongs you or lives a lifestyle you don't agree with, today's society teaches us to punish, and to judge! And finally to walk away and to shun them.
Our society is upside down and backwards. We sure can take a hold of 'an eye for an eye,' and condemnation and judgement, but we distort tolerance, we distort forgiveness....we distort Agape Love. We try to make life about ourselves, and we forget that condemnation and judgement don't lie in our hands they lie in God's.
Agape Love in your marriage...in your relationship with your daughter...in your relationship with your sister, or your mom or your dad! What does that look like? Mom's know. They know because God gave us a gift to love our children 'No matter what!' It's ingrained in us to love unconditionally with our children. But it's harder to do with anyone else.
When your spouse is being a jerk, it's hard to love them. when your spouse is being selfish, it's hard to love them. When your spouse is doing things that make your life harder-it's hard to love them. But it is what we are called to do, because anything short of that is selfish in itself.
For many years I bought into the lie that if 'he' did anything to hurt me (and the 2 he's did a lot...I mean a lot) like cheat, use our money unwisely, lie, desert me emotionally, berate me, criticize me, ignore me, etc...then I was supposed to get mad, and lecture him for hours (I became very good at the hour lectures) and then I would be mad some more, and it never dawned on me that my actions weren't justified or ok....because it was somehow engrained in me that anger was how you were supposed to respond to being hurt. But my actions were ungodly and definitely unloving. And I walked around all mad all the time...mostly at myself for getting mad or being mad. It was a vicious cycle of madness! Now, I'm not saying it's ok for spouses to be mean to each other and expect the other person to love you unconditionally, I am saying that if you are both really loving each other with Agape Love, and taking responsibility for YOURSELF, and letting God handle their sin, your relationships will be so much better-your life will be better! Only God can convict them to see their wrongs. You have no power in yourself to change or convict your partner. I know it sounds crazy because believe me, when my hunny says something to me that I think is disrespectful, the first thing I want to do is say 'Oh yeah!...well let me tell you buddy!' I mean if marriage was easy we wouldn't have such a high divorce rate....We could call it McMarriage - Get McMarried! It's fast, easy and the way you want it!
Women are all fooled into thinking that getting married is like getting rescued, and men think that marriage means they get daily, all day and night jiggy-jiggy...what fools we are...what fools...
Marriage has absolutely nothing to do with you or what you get...it's not about you...it's about what you give...it's about your partner. Give them grace when they mess up, give them patience when you yourself are groucho, give them love everyday, day in and day out. Hug them, kiss them, hold their hand, serve them, help them, and tell them you love them...especially when they don't deserve it...Show them you love them with Agape Love...because we all need that...
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