Though this short string of words could mean several things, there are two predominant ways that it’s teaching me in this season. It’s reminding me of the abundance of love and that the call to love is never completed.
The Abundance of Love
The first truth I’m reminded of today: Love doesn’t run out. It doesn’t follow the regular logic that applies to most resources. Giving it away doesn’t result in depleted stores when we’re sourcing our love properly. In a world where scarcity is proclaimed loudly and often, it’s tempting to hoard our love. But much like manna, it is intentionally created with a short shelf life. When we hoard love, it becomes something else entirely: greed, selfishness, pride. It’s meant to be in a constant flow of receiving and giving, receiving and giving. It’s meant to be something that binds us in an endless cycle of remembering our dependence. And when we jump into this cycle, we joyfully discover that our love never ends.
The Call to Love is Never Completed
The endlessness of love also means that it’s something at which we never fully arrive. It’s the ever perplexing “already not yet”. (For some reason I can’t think of this without thinking of the Tolkien poem, “The Road goes ever on and on…”) It’s an ongoing, good-ushering journey the involves shaping ourselves and enriching the lives of those around us through the process. The need for both goes ever on. No matter where we fall on the journey of being made whole, there’s always more required. Each day grants us opportunities to love and to continue in the work of becoming more loving creatures. The journey of love never ends.
There isn’t an exclusive course that leads to mastery in love. It’s available to each of us in our particular circumstance. The journey doesn’t always seem particularly linear. We get it right one day and then terribly wrong the next. It’s forward. It’s backward. It’s up and down. It’s a mystery. But it’s impossible to dwell in it and remain unchanged. Love is meant to serve as the motivation for all of the behaviors and attributes that come before in this chapter of 1 Corinthians 13. And it has to be where we start. Because, for instance, if we seek patience apart from love, we instead find something laced with self-righteousness and pride. Love has to be the core and the catalyst, the inspiration and the driving force. May it be so. May love be our motivation. May love be what moves us from the moment we wake, to the moment we rest again, over and over. Love never ends.
