Love is patient

Love is patient (1 Corinthians 13:4)

1 Corinthians is a letter written by a guy called Paul. Paul was the most famous Christian missionary travelling around telling people about Jesus, and setting up churches. This particular letter was written to the church in Corinth, and this chapter concerns love (you may have heard it at weddings?).

Corinth wasn't the nicest of cities. There was a temple in the city to the Greek goddess Aphrodites, and this temple alone employed 1,000 prostitutes (Harris, 2003:63). We can feel like our culture is so different to anything in the bible, but throughout history we have been just as obsessed with sex, and just as much wrong went on - its a different time, but people are people. Instead of legalised prostitution in a religious temple, today we have a thriving porn industry, ever increasing sexualisation and a separation between the act and relationship (which misses a heck of a lot). The point I'm making by talking about the shrine prostitutes is that in Corinth, love was not patient, Love was a commodity, but in Paul writing this shows that it doesn't have to be, it can be something that takes time, and develops beautifully. I have a friend who made sloe gin this year, she put the sloe berries in gin and left it under her bed for months. The point was that good things do take time, and she wanted to act this out in the process of making sloe gin. Tescos do most of the things I need, so I can feel devoid of waiting, but I still remember as a child waiting for black berry season, or the snow in winter. To be honest, I'm glad that I have to wait a year for each, because too much snow (cold) or too many black berries make me sick :)

Of all the characteristics of love mentioned in 1 Cor 13, patience is the one I am learning most. Song of Songs 2:7 really spoke to me earlier this year (..."do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires"). I had been so eager to awaken romantic love, that I had not been patient enough to wait for the right timing. I now ever increasingly see waiting for the right time means that we act when the black berries are ripe, and not bitter; when ready, and not half-way-there. This doesn't just go for romantic relationships though, "patience is a [real] virtue". Waiting for the right time, and living in the waiting instead of the future when it comes (imagine a kid who spends the year talking about what Santa will bring - nightmare for mums :p). When we can be patient and wait for the right time, when waiting isn't such a bad thing, I have found that peace tends to follow. If you get time this week, why not practice patience? Stand in the longest line at the supermarket, smile in that minute your waiting behind the traffic lights and embrace every moment - even the inbetween fazes. Finally, is there anything that we need patience for, or are rushing into at the wrong time?

God guide
love
xSx