Love is Patient

Read I Corinthians 13

I would like to look at love today (and for a few more days, probably). So now let’s look at the character of this love. If you ever get a true glimpse of what love really is, you will see God. Scripture reveals to us that God IS love. If you want true love in your life, what you really desire is to have God in your life. This is why this passage is so important, it reveals God to us.
Paul defines for us what agape means. By doing so, he is telling us who God is. He does it in terms of what it is and what it is not. There are 8 things it does, 8 things it does not do. (Reread verses 4-8 again) The 8 things love is: Patient, Kind, and Rejoices in truth, Protects, Trusts, Hopes, Perseveres, Never fails. The 8 things love is not: Envy, Boasting, Pride, Rudeness, Self seeking, Anger, holding grudges, delighting in evil.
Over the next few days I would like to look at these on an individual basis. First, love is patient. I am known to be fairly patient. It is part of my personality so I am blessed in that regard. However, I have a friend (who will remain nameless to protect the innocent) that at one point in his life did not possess much patience. In fact, when he was engaged and things didn’t seem to be going so well he threw the engagement ring in the middle of a field. We spent hours with a metal detector trying to find it. Thankfully, we did. I said that to say this; patience (and thus, love) can be a learned behavior. My friend today, has grown greatly in patience and not coincidentally has become more for God because of it. The concept of patience comes from two Greek words: “long” and “tempered”. Vine’s expository dictionary says patience is “self restraint in the face of provocation … the opposite of anger.”
Do you have a short fuse? Do you get easily frustrated when things don’t go your way or don’t happen fast enough? Do you retaliate easily and quickly against those that hurt you? That’s the opposite of patient. Remember, this is a revelation of God. How patient has He been? Ask yourself this question, how long ago was Adam and Eve in the garden? I think that states it plainly. Patience means you wait out trouble and you don’t strike out against adversity.
I like how Peter describes it in his letter: I Peter 5:6 “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.” You wait under God’s hand – you don’t run to trouble or run from God. Certainly God is patient with us, isn’t He? That’s love.
The second revelation of God as love is kindness. The Greek word for “kind” means “to show one self useful.” Taking patience one step further – not only are you long tempered against trouble, but you actually reach out with a benefit to someone else. It comes from a root word that means “employed.” Today, not only has my friend gained patience, but he is full of kindness. He has so much kindness in his heart that he has started a home mission’s church in order to serve others, and bring them true love.
It reminds me of something Paul emphasizes over and over in this letter: I Corinthians 10:33 “For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.” Most of the time we think about “what’s in it for me.” But kindness thinks, “What can I do to benefit you?” That’s love.
How about you today? Have you found true love in someone’s patience or kindness? Has your parents demonstrated that to you? Even if they haven’t, there is a heavenly Father that has. Why don’t you crawl up into those arms and let Him embrace you in that love today?

“Patience is the companion of wisdom.”
- Saint Augustine