"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...." (1 Corinthians 13:4-8 ESV)Read that again. No, really read it. I feel like this is one of the passages of Scripture that we skim over and are all like, "Yeah, yeah. I know this one. Love is good. Happy thoughts. La dee la," and then move on. There's so much more there, though!
What this says to me is that loving someone is hard. It's not something you simply "fall" into. Love is a choice, a decision, an action, a series of actions. Love doesn't go away when it is not reciprocated, when it is not appreciated, when it is not accepted. Love is not all butterflies and good times. Love is selfless. Love is painful. Loving someone basically guarantees a broken heart.
Is it worth it?
"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us." (1 John 4:7-12 ESVJesus loved us. That love wasn't easy. In fact, it meant His death. But we love others out of a response for God's love for us, no matter what that love looks like. To quote Chris Martin, no body said it was easy.
SDG
