In the modern world, so many things seem insurmountable. One word continues to resonate with me: love, but more specifically, abiding love.
Abiding means unshakable, unchanging and unending. It means we stick with it and are consistent. Abiding love is unearned and often inexplicable. We receive it through family, friends, caregivers, complete strangers, and God.
Abiding love is a mature love. It is a love that makes it through the tough times. A love that is beyond lust. Love that endures through the changes of life, through the physical and mental challenges of old age. Love that doesn’t focus on the sags and wrinkles of time. A love that will happily get up multiple times in the night to help a wife to the bathroom after surgery. (Thanks Honey!)
We may not want to adult today, but James 1:4 encourages us, “And let patient endurance finish its work, so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
And, 1 Corinthians 13:11 admonishes us, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became an adult, I set aside childish ways.”
Think about a love that goes deeper than our emotions. 1 Peter 4:8 tells us, “Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.”
It is a love that is born out of the sincerity of the heart, not of the mind. Abiding love changes our thinking, and we choose to act in control of ourselves, out of patience and kindness. We choose to believe that, “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.)
Practicing love has always been a challenge. Romans 12:9-10 says, “Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.”
Lately my heart has been feeling an urgency. Do you feel it? Today I want to tell whoever is reading this: God loves you with an abiding love. His love is unshakable, unchanging and unending, and through you, others can feel this love too.
Reading John 15:7, I learn, “If you abide in me, and my words also abide in you, ask what you will, and it shall be done for you.”
My prayer is this: together let’s fill the world with love, one heart at a time!
“I will abide in Your tabernacle forever; I will trust in the shelter of Your wings.” Psalm 61:4
“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.” Psalm 91:1
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