Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.  1 Corinthians 13:7-8a

Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye. – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

The verses above could be translated as:

Love protects, shields, guards, covers, conceals, and safeguards people from exposure.

Love strains forward with all its might to believe the very best in every situation.

Love always expects and anticipates the best in others and the best for others.
Love never quits, never surrenders, and never gives up. Real love never quits because it doesn’t know how to quit.

Love will enable us to stand...regardless.

Love believes that circumstances or situations can improve.  That is also the very nature of hope.  That hope is based on the conviction that God is going to be with us, whatever the hardships of life.  That hope will see us through.  You see here the connection between faith, hope, and love.  Faith is the idea that we believe that God does love us to the point that we risk our lives, invest our lives in that faith.  That faith leads us to view the hardships of life, not with cynicism but with the conviction that God is always going to be with us.  He affirms, “I will never leave you.  I will never forsake you.”  Because of our faith and hope, we have a response of love to other people.  We have a desire to help, to include, and affirm others. 

When we love someone, even if we can see the bad, we often choose to believe it is not there and only see the good. We choose to believe, hope, endure, to never give up.  If you have loved ones in your life in the midst of major sin, and you are not the most loving person they know, then you are doing something wrong.  That doesn’t mean condoning their sin, that means loving them and not their sin.  It means loving them through this season of rebellion.  It means hoping and believing that the good you have seen will eventually win out.  Sometimes all the motivation people need is someone who believes in them.  Paul gives us his thirteenth point about love when he says that love “…hopeth all things….” The Greek word for “hopeth” is the word elpidzo, which depicts not only a hope, but an expectation of good things. This means that rather than expecting failure or a bad result in someone’s life, the agape love of God always expects the best in someone else. It not only expects it, but it is filled with an anticipation to see the outcome of God’s hand in someone’s life.

Of course everyone definitely needs the love of God, but the love of a family and/or close friend is also important. When you feel like you are being attacked on every front but you know there is someone who loves you and believes in you no matter what, you can endure any storm.  If you don’t have someone one that loves you that unconditionally, it is absolutely the loneliest feeling in the world.  Everyone needs the unconditional love of someone.  God designed us to need to be loved and He created love.  He created families and His plan is for us to love and support each other.  His plan is for us to hope, believe, endure, and never give up.  He never gives up on us.  

Now, at this point in my life, love means something different to me.  It is not fluffy and romantic.  It is not dreamy and fairy-tale material.  It is real.  It is hard.   But it is worth it. And the only way I endure often is through hope and believing by faith that God, the author of my life and lover of my soul, has got this. 

Scripture to Claim:
But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love. 
1 Corinthians 13:13