Love . . . Always Protects, Trusts, Hopes, Perseveres

The old “glass half-empty or half-full” conundrum is designed to give a snapshot look at a person’s outlook on life. There are really two answers to the question (despite others trying to complicate the matter by defining “full” in a different context or asking for undetermined circumstances leading to the level of liquid in the glass in question), and how we answer supposedly determines if a person is a pessimist or optimist in looking at life.

The truth of the matter is that there is no real answer to the question of whether a person is an optimist or pessimist. Granted, we can see a person’s general outlook in life, but in almost everyone’s life, there are times we become optimistic and times we become pessimistic. It really all depends on how we decide to look at life and look at the world around us.

Paul has spent the last few verses of Chapter 13 telling us mostly what love is not. Now he turns to the idea of what love is. In looking at agape love, a lot of it depends on how we choose to look at life and how we choose to relate to those in our world.

Love Always Protects

The idea of love protecting is that it protects the other person. There are those who say the original language should be “covers up” or “buries,” as in buries the past, the hurts, the mistakes. Regardless of how it is interpreted, the idea is that the love God expects us to have will lead us to overlook other’s faults and shortcomings as we look at the big picture of things.

It doesn’t take long in our world to realize that no one is perfect, that we all have our own flaws. Some of the flaws are little, some are large and some are humongous. The person who loves does not ignore these shortcomings, but neither does the one who loves dwell on the weaknesses of those we encounter.

What love wants to do is give the best available for a person. Parents love their children and want to protect them from the hurts that life can bring. We want to make sure our children are in the best world possible. Sometimes, we overcompensate, thus giving rise to the term “helicopter parent.” That much protection is not healthy, and that’s not the protection that is meant here. Instead, the love is there to allow the person to experience life and grow from it, but the protection provided is the safe haven of knowing that there is always someone who is in the other person’s corner.

The love that protects is the love that says, “I will always love you, and no matter what, that love will not die. I may not always be proud of you, I may be disappointed at times, but I will always love you.” That assurance lets the one who is loved know that there is always a place, a person who will give them the unconditional acceptance we all need and crave.

Love always protects.

Love Always Trusts

Trust is a difficult thing. There are those in our world who trust no one; conversely, there are those who trust to the point of being gullible. Paul is not speaking of such a trust in either extreme. The trust mentioned here is the willingness to believe the best about others, to count upon them as being reliable, of being trustworthy.

I worked at a law firm and got along well enough with everyone at the office. There was one particular person I became closest to. She and I would talk about many things. I considered her a friend. As a friend, I would tell her some things that I thought were just between us. If a person tells me something, I keep it to myself. Occasionally, I’ll tell my wife something. Being an attorney and a minister, though, I learned that a large part of the trust my clients and parishioners had in me necessitated that I keep things said to me to myself. Attorney-client privilege is a real thing. And so is the duties of a confessor/minister.

As such, I trust that someone with whom I am speaking to have that same code of conduct. I know you can trust me, and I assume I can trust you, particularly if I call you friend. Unfortunately for me, I discovered too late that my work friend did not hold to that same code. My trust was misplaced, because things I had told her in confidence wound up in the knowledge of someone I didn’t want to know the particular thing or things.

All that to say is that a trust can be violated, and it takes a lot to re-establish the trust once it’s been violated. And one of the ways trust is renewed is through allowing ourselves to trust again.

That, I believe, is what Paul is talking about. Love that comes from God is a trusting love, one that looks upon people as being ones who genuinely want to do good. I know the Bible teaches that there is no one righteous, but that doesn’t mean that everyone is always only looking out for their own interests.

As usual, Jesus is the model of such love. He trusted, though He also demonstrated the concept of being as wise as a serpent but as innocent as a dove. Jesus knew whom He could trust and whom to avoid. The trust Jesus exhibits is seen in the way He treated Peter after Christ’s resurrection. Not only did Jesus forgive Peter his betrayal, but Jesus brought him back into the fold through the walk along the shore. “Peter, do you love Me? Feed My sheep” (cf. John 21). Peter betrayed the trust; Jesus restored the trust.

That’s because love always trusts.

Love Always Hopes

Reading in Lamentations, I came across an interesting passage. In Lamentations 3, the writer is speaking matter-of-factly about the persecution and affliction he has and is enduring. He makes a long list of his woes, then, in the middle of the chapter, he writes: “I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope. Because of God’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail” (Lamentations 3:19-22). He later writes, “The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord” (Lamentations 3:25-26).

I believe this is what Paul had in mind when he wrote that love always hopes. Love looks forward to better times because of the faith we have, not in men, but in God. This hope that is based upon a right relationship with God allows us to believe that God can and does allow His will to prevail. It is a sense that God is in control, and even if the world is crashing in around us, we know that God’s love rules supreme. That same love indwells us through His Spirit and enables us to see the silver lining even in the darkest cloud.

The hope spoken of in 1 Corinthians 13 is a hope that is affiliated with the protection, trust and perseverance of the seventh verse. These four elements are intertwined, growing out of one another and building on one another. Each of these elements are found in Christ, and the steadfastness of these elements in Christ allow us to extend these same attitudes to those with whom we relate each day.

Our hope is in the Lord; therefore, our hope can extend to God working in the lives of those we love and in the circumstances around them to bring them to a right relationship with Him. We always have hope, and we always have love. Love and hope go together because love allows us to believe in the one whom we love.

Love Always Perseveres

Perseverance is an attribute almost everyone lauds. The ability to stay with something to the end, to stick to it despite the setbacks and the disappointments enables us to almost always succeed. Perseverance is a dogged determination to hold on to something, to stay with someone, believing and knowing that the long-term investment will be worth it in the end.

Is it possible to give up on someone if we truly love them? Sure, we may alter a relationship with someone if, despite our love, that person’s actions lead us to determine it’s better to distance ourselves from that person for our own health and well-being. But if we truly love, then we will never truly give up on them, either. Again, combining the protection, trust and hope that love always is leads us to persevere in the confidence that love can change anything.

The perseverance spoken of here is a willingness to always work toward the redemption of a person or circumstance, knowing that God, who is in control, will bring about His just end in the matter. God may bring healing in ways we do not anticipate healing, but we never give up in believing that God is aware of and tending to the needs of each person around us.

An example of persevering is found in Luke 11. Jesus’ disciples had come to Him and asked Him to teach them to pray. Jesus begins with the Model Prayer (vs. 2-4) and then gives them a parable.

“Suppose one of you has a friend, and he goes to him at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.’ Then the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children are with me in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man’s boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs” (Luke 11:5-8).

Jesus then goes on to state that we should ask, seek and knock. In the original language, the words we interpret as “ask,” “seek” and “knock” are more accurately translated as “continue to ask,” “keep on seeking” and “continues to knock.” The implication is that we are not to give up in our petitions before God, not because God is a procrastinator or hard of hearing or indifferent, but because our perseverance in matters before God is a demonstration of our love and our commitment to God and to the need for which we ask, seek and plead.

Love always perseveres.

Love Always

As I mentioned before, these elements of protection, trust, hope and persevance are intertwined together in the idea of agape love. It is difficult to have one, two or three of the elements and lack one or more. If trust exists, there must of necessity be hope, and if there is hope, how can we do anything less than persevere? The one who trusts, hopes and perseveres does what he or she can do to protect the one who is loved. It all goes together. Without these, what is love, really?

© 2019 Glynn Beaty