Recently I taught 1 Corinthians 13 (the “love chapter”) to a class of four- to six-year-olds. It’s a famous passage; you’ve probably heard these verses at weddings, or in a sermon about how we should love others. I’m probably not the only one with part of this verse artfully inscribed on a plaque that sits on a shelf in my home.
How do we love others well? If you’ve ever wondered, this chapter will leave no doubt in your mind.
The practical how-to verses (v. 4–8) are right in the middle: “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, endures all things. Love never ends.”
In this passage, there are eleven straightforward, everyday signs (displays or expressions) of love that we should be attempting with those around us every single day … followed by five looser, more general concepts as reminders of the abiding characteristics of love.
I’ve considered these verses many times during the thirty years that I’ve been a Christian. In fact, I bought that decorative plaque that I mentioned during the time in my life when I had several young children underfoot. During those busy and chaotic years, I realized how much I needed a constant reminder of how to show love to everyone in my household (husband included).
Lately I’ve been thinking about these verses again regarding family … extended family, that is, and how we respond to difficulty or tragedy when it strikes. Because none of us will escape trouble of varying degrees in our lives. At some point, and more than once, it’s going to strike.
Many years ago, the matriarch of my extended family, my maternal grandmother, experienced a long illness that eventually took her life. Her absence was also a death sentence for many family relationships, resulting in multiple permanent estrangements. As I reflect on those years, I can see now that what family members sow into each other (love and kindness, or not) will eventually be what is reaped in times of struggle or catastrophe. When you sow discord, you will reap broken relationships. I wasn’t a Christian at that time in my life, but as I look back, the biblical wisdom resonates: “As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same” (Job 4:8).
And now recently, my husband’s family (the one that exhibits Love Without Limits) is experiencing a sudden, debilitating health crisis affecting its matriarch. The difference this time is that instead of relationships being destroyed, they are being reinforced. Instead of problems rising to the surface, there is selflessness and togetherness. Instead of undercurrents of distrust and discord, there is an abundance of compassion, acceptance, and good will. As we gather together, coming and going, day and night, in the small, nursing-care space of a dearly beloved woman who has showered out tremendous love and kindness on her family for decades, I’m reminded now of the other thing that the Bible says about reaping and sowing, that “whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9:6b). As we surround my mother-in-law with love and comfort as best as we possibly can, our relationships with each other are also enriched and strengthened. Her years of sowing love and kindness into loved ones have given birth to a family legacy of the same.
Will loss or calamity bring your family closer together, or tear it apart? Will personal difficulties bring you closer to God and your loved ones or isolate you in your time of trouble?
What you sow now matters.
As much as you are able, sow love into your family members—even the ones who are different from you or the quirky ones or the ones who aren’t easy to love. Your siblings, your in-laws, your parents, your children, your spouse. Equally as important, sow love into your own heart and mind with God’s word, books and media that are uplifting and soul-nourishing, and regular worship with a church family. These things will not guarantee that your times of trouble will be easy (by definition they will not), but God promises that “whatever one sows, that will he also reap” (Galatians 6:7b). Just as God’s word that goes out from his mouth does not return empty, but accomplishes his purpose (Isaiah 55:11), so shall the love you invest in others and the investment of God’s word in your heart return to you in your time of need.
When I taught 1 Corinthians 13 to very young students, I went through this practical list step by step; here it is again for adults, because we all need these reminders of exactly how to love others well:
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, endures all things.
Love never ends.
When trouble strikes, you will reap what you have sown. Have you sown love?
Great and Noble Tasks 