It is alive when it has time…

We are looking at healthy relationships.  How love acts and how I'm doing with that tells me whether my relationships are healthy or not. 

So if I'm going to evaluate how that works in my life it helps me to see whether my love is alive or whether it is in trouble. 

First of all love is patient tells me that love is alive when it has time. 

You spell patience "time".  It tells me that love is dying when it's hurried, in a rush.  It tells me that love is dead when it cannot wait. 

I Corinthians 13:4 (NIV), "Love is patient".  That means it has to take time. 

We spend so much of the time of our lives in the waiting room and we wait for marriage, we wait for children, we wait for an illness to pass, for a dream to happen.  We have to wait together for a lot of things.  You have to be patient.  That has to be part of our relationships.  But the most important part isn't waiting with each other it's when we have to wait for each other that we really struggle.

Ephesians 4:2 (LB), "Be humble and gentle.  Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other's faults because of your love." 

Patience means I make allowances for the faults of another person.  Patience means not only waiting with somebody but waiting for somebody.  Patience means I take the time to wait for someone else to change.  Wait for somebody to recover.  Make allowance for each other's faults.  Wait for someone to get motivated.  That's the tough part of love. 

And I find strength and motivation to be patient with other people in GOD's patience with me. 

GOD is so patient with us.  I make the same mistake again and again and again and HE patiently forgives me again and again and again.  That's patience.  It took me a while to come to understand what it means to have faith in HIM, but HE patiently kept drawing me in, HE patiently waited for me. 

So if the GOD who made the universe can take time to wait for you and me, then we can learn from HIM to take time to wait for one another, to make allowances for each other's faults, because that's part of what love is.  Love is alive when it has the time.

Just a thought from the front porch…