Love has many characteristics. It is a dynamic word that sometimes gets used to simplify our feelings. Sometimes it is good to break down the word love, contemplate its many characteristics, and then evaluate your marriage relationship to see if you are truly loving. Monica wrote this piece on love, and how she learned that part of loving her husband was by being patient with him. Enjoy!
“Love One Another” is based on Jesus’ command in John 13:34-35 and in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never ends.”
Questions I ask myself:
• Have I been patient with my husband?
• Have I been kind to my husband?
• Have I envied my husband?
• Have I boasted to my husband?
• Have I been arrogant towards my husband?
• Have I been rude to my husband??
• Have I insisted on my own way?
• Have I been irritable?
• Have I been resentful?
• Have I rejoiced at wrong doing?
• Have I rejoiced with the truth?
• Do I bear all things?
• Have I believed all things?
• Have I hoped all things?
• Have I endured all things?
• Love never ends… so I am willing to choose to stick it out, not to a finish line, but to eternity?”
As a missionary wife I have lived in 3 countries. On one occasion several years ago, we were in a foreign country when I received the call that my dad was dying of cancer. My sister had given me the funds to fly with the family on the next flight in order to see him one last time. When I hung up, my husband related to me that he needed to settle things at work and that he needed to go with me, as I was not in a state to fly. At the time I had two little ones and I was also pregnant with my third. At that emotional time, waiting was not an option, even if it was one or two days at the most. I could not understand why waiting was the best thing to do. I ran to the closet and cried out to the Lord for guidance and wisdom. The Lord empowered me to wait, and my father’s immediate death did not occur. We were able to travel as a family and spend Christmas with him and it was better to have waited. God used my husband to minister to my father, and my father minister to us as well.
Waiting is one of the most difficult things we encounter in our relationships with others, especially with our husbands. Patience is a gift from heaven and it is to be found in the person of Jesus Christ. Remember that 1 John 4:19 says that we love because HE (Jesus), first loved us. Like Jesus, who loves us so patiently, let us learn to love our husbands patiently.
– Monica Lozano
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