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Another Way to Look at Love (Part 1)

1 Corinthians 13 (Paraphrase):

Love has a long spirit. It is able to endure for a long time without any encouraging response from the one loved. Even in the face of opposition or insult, real love can hold out without losing its fervor. Love is never crowded to desperation or claims of not being able to take any more. Love can always stand it longer.

Love’s kindness is usefully benevo­lent; that is, it acts like the gracious hostess who seeks to do everything pos­sible to make the love guest comfort­able. Love’s activity is to see to it that it meets every need and every desire. It is considerate, concerned, and compas­sionate with a kind gentleness.

Love never applies the hot pressure of jealousy. It doesn’t think of its own position with respect to the position of the one loved (or worry that it is being taken advantage of). Love never com­plains to itself, “I do most of the work; I compromise all the time. I am more taken advantage of.” Love never thinks that the other has the easier role or the lesser load to carry in the relationship.

Love does not brag to itself or to others. It spends no time congratulat­ing itself on how loving it is or on what a good job it is doing or how great it must be to be loved with such a love. It always is convinced that it needs to improve and that there are many addi­tional or better ways to become better at loving.

Neither is love arrogant; it should never see itself as being any more than the very least it should be—deserving no special credit or recognition for what it does or how it acts. It sees itself not as some great accomplishment de­serving special credit or privileges, but as an ordinary, everyday activity which gives it no claim upon any part of the loved one’s life.

There is a discretion and seemliness about the way love acts. It is appropri­ate in its behavior at all times and will not tolerate any word or activity that would embarrass or draw awkward at­tention to the one loved. It shows itself not with loud crashing fanfare but with sensitive intimacy. Love understands how to behave in public and how to measure itself in private. No one is ever frightened or unsettled around love.