Love Isn’t … (2)
1 Corinthians 13:4,5 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful …
Without even knowing anything about you, I am 100% certain that you have at least one person in your life, who drives you completely nutty. They do that same thing that they know annoys you over and over again. Am I right?
You know how in a relationship, sometimes things just kind of niggle away at you? They start off as small things but before you know it … they’re tearing your relationship apart. It happens in marriages in particular, all the time. Those little foibles that we find so endearing early on become a pounding headache just a few years on.
You’ve probably heard of that old Chinese water torture, where they tie a man down and drip water on his forehead for days on end until each small drop feels like a brick falling on his forehead.
That’s how it is in relationships. The other person’s foibles, weaknesses, blind spots … whatever … just eat away at you over and over and over again until you’re ready to scream.
1 Corinthians 13:4,5 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful …
So love, according to God at least, isn’t irritable or resentful. Love realises that each one of us – yeah, you and me included – is a package deal; a package of incredible creativity and gifts and abilities, together with our own special little idiosyncrasies that drive other people nuts.
Now we’re all too quick to cut ourselves some slack over our weaknesses. Well, you know, that’s just how I am. So what stops us from being quick to cut other people the same slack, quick to realise that – Well, that’s just how they are – rather than letting them get under our skin?
Love isn’t irritable or resentful.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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