We want to be loved. Valued. We like it when someone likes us. A friendship that is more than friends. We want to be loved.
So…what does it look like to be loved?
We have a ideas of what it looks like. Long walks on lonely stretches of a Lake Michigan beach, hand in hand. Dinner in a quaint local restaurant with lots of intimate talk over dishes of delicious food. A sharing that warms us like a cup of hot chocolate on a blustery winter’s day. These thoughts are more romantic than love. Yet love can be romantic. Romance should be loving too. But is this love?
Paul wrote in a letter to a dysfunctional group of Greek and Hebrew people in a place called Corinth about love. I would like to think he had that couple walking on the beach in mind. I would like it if he had even more than them on his mind. I think he did.
He wrote about a love that never fails. Could you imagine a love where you and the other in any type of relationship kept no records of the wrongs done in it. Never a remembering of an unkind word. No mention of a broken promise or a slight or harshness or… There are a thousand or’s don’t you know? A love where patience rules between individuals for each other. Kindness too. No conceit, no rudeness, nor any taking advantage of each other. If someone made allowance for your imperfections wouldn’t it be more than nice?
A love where trust, hope and an aim to endure together no matter what comes would be so satisfying.
This love would be so good, so enjoyable. Some will always think it would be nice to find someone to love like Paul describes. Even some would love it if it was them on the receiving end. A love that would be described as reciprocal. But would it not be nice to live in a neighborhood with this kind of love? Or a county? A state? A nation? A world?
Still it might be better to start small. If we could find two people who would achieve this love as described; wouldn’t that be nice?
You bet!