Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NASB)This is a familiar passage. It fits in the middle of Paul's discussion of love in one of his letters to a church in Corinth, and that discussion fits within a larger discussion of the place of various gifts of the Holy Spirit and how they were to be used in the context of a church. So this is a kernel within a kernel; a 'heart' if you will.
When I read this, I can't help seeing all my faults and immediately start trying to justify and explain myself. I'm suddenly an adolescent again, and it's the 'shark tank' of high school all over again. You may have a different response. Whatever your response, I have a suggested one, one that just dawned on me this morning, one I don't remember having before.
Read just this all at once without stopping or thinking about the individual pieces (there's no period until verse 7 anyway). Don't think about yourself, think about what this would look like if you were to see it. Think about someone with these qualities. You may first have to get through the images of 'pansy', 'weakling', and 'idiot', but once through those, what do you see?
I see something really amazing. After the 'dust' of fighting, fear, and anger settles is this person who remains unperturbed in middle of it all. The last lone survivor; the very picture of tranquility when all is chaos around them. But the picture is really a 'video' for when the dust settles, this tranquil person begins binding the wounded, and comforting the hopeless, even the ones who persecuted and tormented them.
The only way I can imagine this as a possibility is to think that such a person does not see the world as we see it, but rather as a small part of a larger whole of the Kingdom of my Master. Then these 'acts of war' are understood as mere teacup tempests. But what my King has done for us overshadows all the darkness dispelling whatever obscures and casts wicked shadows.
Imagine waiting patiently, not provoking those who provoke us, not remembering wrongs suffered, covering everything, believing everything (choosing to be naive), never loosing hope, and never giving up. It sounds foolish, like totally opening myself up to the damage others do intentionally or not. Where are the protective boundaries? How are these wise decisions that protect myself and my family?
Yet it is a demonstration of unwavering faith in Jesus, and all that He has done for me. After that, nothing else really matters, like my own boundaries to protect myself, protecting my family, and so on. It sounds dangerously foolish, but it's not. Jesus said that no one can be His disciple unless he hate his own family and even his own life. What do we think He meant by that?
This really unsettles me, disturbs me, and I don't like it at all. It scares me to expose myself like this to an unfriendly world. But then there's this tranquility that I really crave at the core. I really want that. The way I'm working in this world is wearing me out, and I'm stressed. I really do crave the peace and tranquility within the chaos this passage describes. But am I willing to give up my fears in exchange for faith? Am I willing to trust my Master so implicitly, so thoroughly? Are you?
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