Love is Patient

Folks, we live in a deceptive culture.  Oftentimes our beliefs and expectations have been so shaped by Hollywood and technology that we don't even realize how weak our collective resolve has become.  We no longer believe that patience is a 'virtue'.  Oh, we may say we believe that, but our actions are very different.  In the first of his most excellent statements on love, the apostle Paul writes that "Love is Patient".

Read 1 Corinthians 13: 4-10

4 Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.



Let's look at what Paul did not say.  He did not say love should be patient.  He did not say love is sometimes patient.  He did not say that love is mostly patient.  He wrote precisely what the Holy Spirit told him to write, and that was, Love is patient.  What is more telling, is that he listed patience first among the litany of other descriptors of love.  This indicates that patience within the context of love is important.

What, then, is patience?  Patience is the quality of being able to be hurt, embarrassed, or provoked to anger by another person without resentment, or revenge.  Read the previous sentence again.  Patience, brothers and sisters is developing a thick skin that will allow us to be hurt over and over again without ceasing to love the ones that hurt us.  It is a very Christ-like quality.  While Christ suffered on the cross for those that laughed at him, made fun of him, physically hurt him; we tend to want to rebuke someone for stepping on our Nike tennis shoe.  How wretched are we? 

A perfect example of loving patience is the Civil Rights Movement.  Those brothers and sisters loved so deeply that they would not retaliate against angry people who mowed them down with fire hoses, loosed vicious dogs on them, beat them with clubs, and even hung their beautiful babies from trees.  Just thinking about it makes me angry.  Yet, the Black people in the movement had enough loving patience to endure until victory was won! (Yes folks, there were many victories, it is us that are making a mockery of all they fought for--those beautiful people didn't get beat on so Lil Wayne and those other fools can walk around here like idiots.  And those are our heroes.  How wretched are we?)

How then does patience relate to love?  We are going to hurt one another.  There is no way around it, except to go through it.  Husbands, your wives will cause you pain.  Wives, your husbands will cause you pain.  Parents your children will cause you pain.  Children, your parents will cause you pain.  Brothers and sisters, your sibling will cause you pain.  Friends, your...you get the picture.  It is an inescapable aspect of life.  We hurt those that are closest to us, and those that are not so close to us.  Without patience, love transforms into a much lesser form of itself.  Without patience love becomes conditional, and we only love people when they make us feel good.  Thus, we would abandon our loved ones when they need us the most. 

When we are operating in impatience, we are not being loving.    Husbands, we are to be the ministers in our homes.  We must operate in patience, or we are indirectly communicating to our wives, and/or children that we either do not love them, or we are not mature enough to love them the way God commands us to love.