Love is Patient

I’m learning a lot about what it means to love someone so closely. One big thing I’ve learned is just how bad I am at it. But a bigger lesson is just how valuable God’s love is, and how gracious He is to offer us His love fresh and new daily.

Here are some of my notes on 1 Corinthians 13, starting with Love is Patient.

Love is Patient

Patience is very closely related to the word *passion*. They both have to do with suffering. Passion is literally defined as suffering, the idea being we are so passionate for someone or something, that we are willing to undergo difficulty for them. Patience is passion in action.

I guess this is why Paul lists it first among his descriptive qualities of love. Love is first *passion in action*, which is being so taken by the beauty and value of something that we endure for them, which includes enduring the big and small pains that comes with loving anything and anyone, with a firmness of resolve.

A passionate man (or woman) is a patient man.

Prayer: Father, help me suffer with Christ-like quality, which permits injury, damage, and pain with a firm, unyielding, enduring love.