“If you love someone . . believe in them, always expect the best.” 1 Corinthians 13:7 TLB
“Love accepts people as they are, then helps them become what they should.”
My thoughts today are about “love’s personality.”
Love. Everyone wants to receive it; not everyone knows how to give it. A lot of things masquerade as love that really are not love at all. People touch your life and claim to love you, and they might be sincere but not love enough. It is not a person’s intention that qualifies their actions as loving; it is their manner of relating to you with kindness and understanding. For instance, extreme jealousy is not love, but just a controlling possessiveness that excuses itself as love. Love trusts rather than distrusts, believes rather than doubts.
Any attempt to control another’s will by any means is not love, even with good intention. Love cares and contributes to another’s well being, even when tempted to control. Love does not seek to gain advantage or satisfy one’s own desire or need at the expense of another. Love wants and seeks only the highest and the best for the other, even at the sacrifice of its own wants. It is never selfish; loves serves and sacrifices.
Efforts to limit and confine another are not love. Love allows room for a person to grow and be free to become more, respecting their individuality and uniqueness. Love does not coerce another to conform to your wishes against their will. Real love accepts people as they are, then helps them become what they should.
That’s why love is not always easy. Love will not hold on when it needs to let go. Love does not insist on unquestioned rightness when there are honest differences. Love may well choose to defer to another without demanding or leaving.
Does that sound like love is weak, or that to love you must be willing to become someone’s doormat? Love is anything but weak. Love is strong enough to not have to impose itself against the other’s will. Love is clearly the strongest force of which you are capable, and love is the most personal and precious gift that you are able to give.
God loves you that way; “For God loved the world in this way: He gave His only Son so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.” John 3:16. Everything costs somebody something, but God’s love cost Him everything. “Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the (price) for our sins.” 1 John 4:10.
My prayer today is this: value what is priceless, recognizing and refusing any substitute.