Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)My daughter ate at IHOP, the pancake place, tonight. And I am glad because it makes her happy to eat there.
That is love. The fact that I didn’t but she did and I am glad. I want her to be happy and when she eats at her favorite place it makes her happy.
And when she is happy, I am happy.
That is love. Love doesn’t mean that I have to eat there too, that I have to do the same things she does, that things have to be equal. Love means that things can happen to her that are good and that do not happen to me. But even so, those things make me happy.
My wife and I figured that out long ago. Because something happens good to her, I can be happy, even though nothing necessarily happens good to me.
It is the making her happy that makes me happy.
When we figure that out, we figure out a lot.
Young couples have a problem with that. Everything has to be equal. Yes, you had a good thing happen, so I have to have one too.
But a mature love recognizes that the other person is happy and that makes you happy.
It almost sounds like doubletalk, but it isn’t. It is real. And it is love.
As the scripture says, it does not demand its own way. It recognizes that good things can happen to your wife that do not happen to you and that is okay. And conversely, good things can happen to you and not to your wife and that is okay.
In other words, love does not demand equality in order to be happy. Inequality can make you just as happy.
My wife wins an award or some kind of recognition and I do not. So what? Love says that is good.
My wife and I both recognize that. She accepts my ministry without necessarily having to be a part of it and is happy. I can be recognized as something and she is happy. And in the same way, she can be recognized and I am happy.
Love likes the best of people and doesn’t demand equal treatment. You can be happy they got their due while you didn’t. So what?
That is love.
My daughter got to eat at her favorite place tonight and I am happy. She loves it at IHOP and I am happy for her. That is love.
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