1 Corinthians 13:8
Love never fails.
“To love and to hold…for better, or worse… For richer or for poorer… In sickness and in health… Till death do us part… This is my solemn vow.”
These words are part of the vows my wife and I made to each other on our wedding day, and that many people, Christian and non-Christian alike, make on their wedding day. They are a promise of love unending, only broken by death. Unfortunately, many of us live through the pain of the promise broken and our hearts shredded and shattered. Whether through our own fault or that of our spouses, some of us have to unfortunately live with the reality of vows unkept. Yet, if it is not our own story, it is the reality of someone we know closely. One then wonders what the Bible means when it says love never fails while our own life experiences reveal something different?
One of the lessons I have come to learn in my short life and faith journey is that our experiences are not to be the judge of what is true or not. Rather, we must conform our experiences to truth. Our passage today is one of those truths we must wrestle with despite our experience shouting the exact opposite, “Love does fail!” We must first appreciate that what Paul has in mind here is the divine kind of love – agape love. Secondly, we must learn that the love described here is, first and foremost, a commitment before it is a feeling. Please note that I am not downplaying the place of feelings and emotions but only placing them in their right place. The kind of love in view in our passage is the commitment to: be patient and kind; not to envy or boast; not to be arrogant or rude. Not to insist on your own way; not to be irritable or resentful; not to rejoice at wrongdoing, but to rejoice with the truth. To bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
Sounds impossible, right? I know, and that’s why we must rely on the help of God if we are to love like this. We must also rely on Him for healing if our own love story is one of brokenness and pain. Finally, we must commit to love even when we don’t feel love. The commitment side of love will safeguard and secure the emotional side of love. Space and time run out, so I end with the words of Deitrich Bonhoeffer writing to a couple about to get married:
“It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love. God makes your marriage indissoluble.”
Reflections
1. Does your experience of love look different from the truth of love we’ve looked at today? May God heal and restore you.
2. Have you been driven by a commitment to love or feelings of love? What do you need to start doing differently?
