What is the basis of healthy relationships?
Love.
Love is the motivation and the language and the boundaries.
Never has something been written about more, or understood and practiced less.
If we want healthy relationships – real relationships – we need love.
Love is the imperative.
So what is love? What is loving?
All I keep coming back to is that love is grace and truth and love doesn’t look the same in every situation. That’s part of what makes love so hard to define.
We are provided with frameworks for love and then we begin to systematize Love. We turn the poetic descriptions into rules and then weaponize the rules and call it faith.
Love is not a weapon.
What does it look like to love, to actually love, in every situation, and to recognize that love may not look the same in every situation?
What does it look like to think about how our love offerings may be perceived and received by others?
As I have considered what it means to be loving, I’ve spent time reading through 1 Corinthians 13. It’s one of the most commonly quoted sections of scripture regarding the subject of love, so commonly quoted it is known as “the love chapter,” and like so many other descriptions of love, it has not just been quoted but also misquoted, misunderstood, misused, and weaponized. As I read through the chapter, I considered each section, and thought about how Jesus applied love in various circumstances.
LOVE is patient
And with WISDOM, there is a time LOVE says, “enough”
LOVE is kind
Kind is not necessarily nice. Kind is not passive. Kind is not permissive.
LOVE does not envy
LOVE sees that what is sacrificially given multiplies.
LOVE does not boast
It’s not mine, it never was mine,
boasting is grasping and when we grasp, we strangle LOVE
LOVE is not proud
LOVE is vulnerable. Open palms facing up.
LOVE does not dishonor others.
LOVE holds space for humanity and God in you.
LOVE does not permit space for evil actions.
LOVE is not self-seeking
Self is temporary. LOVE is eternal. Self is finite, LOVE is infinite
LOVE is not easily angered
LOVE can reach anger. LOVE uses anger. LOVE does not start with anger.
LOVE keeps no record of wrongs
LOVE does not count the spots on the apple, and LOVE recognizes poisoned fruit.
LOVE does not delight in evil
No matter the justification. No matter the situation. No matter the perpetrator.
LOVE rejoices with the truth
No matter the difficulty. No matter the situation. No matter the speaker.
LOVE always protects
Protects truth, not lies. Protects honor, not evil. Protects kindness, not pride.
LOVE always trusts
Rejoicing with the truth and taking no delight in evil.
LOVE always hopes
With surety and faith, not wishes.
LOVE always perseveres.
Patiently protesting,
giving and releasing,
honoring truth,
protecting in kindness
and hoping,
always active.
Uncovering Real 