Love is complicated.
One of my favorite Bible verses – often read at weddings (and yes, I’ve read it more than once at a few of them) – comes from 1 Corinthians 13.
There is one line in particular that always stops me:
“Love does not insist on its own way.”
I love this phrasing because it brings the verse out of sentimentality and into real life. It’s no longer poetic fluff, it’s personal. It’s challenging. It’s lived.
You see, love hurts because it is worth the effort.
Love heals when it is allowed to flourish in hope.
Love becomes complicated when it is put to the test of endurance.
If I’m being honest, the most complete – and most difficult – interpretation of this passage is the one that requires each of us to love in the very image in which we were created: the love of God Himself.
If we are to love as God loves, then we are called to patience and kindness. To humility without pride. To love that is not rude, not self-seeking, not self-serving.
Sometimes love feels unfair. Sometimes it feels one-sided or simply not enough. And yet, instead of throwing love away, we are called not to be quick to anger, but to give one another the benefit of the doubt, or at the very least, the dignity of honest communication.
When we are hurt by the one we love, we are warned not to keep a record of wrongs, those quiet (or loud) accusations of “you always” and “you never.” And when someone we love is caught in sin, love does not rejoice in their failure or shame, but longs to help restore them.
Love delights in truth.
Love protects and creates safety.
Love trusts.
Love hopes.
And love perseveres – even in the hardest of seasons.
I remember realizing a hard truth about myself: I wasn’t sure I had ever truly known or accepted love that didn’t come with conditions.
I hear so many people say, “I want unconditional love.” I hear invitations to rest in God’s unconditional love. And yet, when I looked back at my own life, I saw how early experiences, especially abuse at a young and impressionable age, taught me something very different: that love had to be earned.
To be loved, I had to give something first.
To keep love, I had to give it in a way that pleased someone else.
And if I failed, the consequences, spoken or unspoken, left me feeling worthless and unlovable.
For me, love became innately conditioned. Even when others may not have placed expectations on me, I placed them on myself. Over time, that led to resentment, exhaustion, and a deeply rooted sense of not being enough.
Until I consciously said – “No more!”
“Love does not insist on its own way.”
And that included me, creating love into something it was never meant to be, or allowing someone else to do the same.
You are loved by an infallible God who created you in love and for love. He desires nothing for you except that you both give and receive that same love freely.
Rest in that truth today.
Love never fails.