Love Suffers Long

Love Suffers Long

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 1 Corinthians 13:4 (KJV)

Love (agape), God's kind of love, suffers long (makrothumeo). This is the kind of love that is laden with patience, long patience. It never loses heart as it perseveres patiently and bravely in enduring misfortunes and trouble. The love of our Lord is patient in bearing the offenses and injuries of others, is mild and slow in avenging, slow to anger and slow to punish.

Our society is filled with time saving devices. Microwave ovens, washing machines and dryers, computers, automobiles, ships and airplanes. We can have a meal ready in a minute and a half, go do other chores or run to the store while the clothes are being washed or dried, type letters without whiteout (you may be too young to remember typewriters) and communicate via fax, text messages or email. Moving along at 60 plus miles an hour we can go from one city to another in a very short amount of time. Our ships carry us over the water in quite speedily and we can go half way around the world in less than a day on our favorite air carrier. All of which makes us less and less able to be patient about anything.

If we are not careful we may allow the ability to get things done in a hurry to begin to place expectations on our children to grow up faster, do more or be more before they are mentally or emotionally mature enough. We may place unreasonable demands upon them and everyone else we know to meet our expectations. This same tendency can come into the church and our spiritual relationships as well. I have found myself falling into this kind of mentality without even noticing the change.

This is unjust and unloving to say the least. I must, and do, repent.
After all, if it has taken the Lord this long to get me where I am, and I'm not completely whole yet, how can I expect anyone else to be changed any faster?

How about you?