Love is hard. Listen to all Paul tells us that love is: patient, kind, humble, nice, accommodating. It, somehow, isn’t irritable or resentful. It puts up with things, is hopeful, and enduring. Those things are hard. Even with the one I love the most, I do not succeed in being all those things.
Paul expects us to embody these things with everyone. How are we supposed to do that? The way we are loved by God. The way we will love when all things have been redeemed. When, Paul says, we will know as we are known.
Think about it, what comes from knowing someone? What happens when we stop hearing ourselves and listen to them? We hear their story. We learn where their actions are born out of hurt, sorrow, and pain. We find out about their bad day, their sick children, their aging parents. And something happens. We understand, find ourselves being patient with them, forgiving them, and asking God to forgive us the irritability, resentment, and arrogance we were feeling.
Beloved, to love let us knowone another. Let us listen to each other so we might search and know those around us as God knows us. Because, now we know only in part what we will learn listening face-to-face.
God of Love, you knew us before we were born, and know our story better than anyone. Help us to seek the story of one another; so, that we might understand and in understanding love as you have called us to love.