For Valentine’s Day here is my paraphrase of Paul’s I Corinthians 13 meditation on love.
If I say all the right words, filled with sentiment and romance, but do not choose to behave in ways that demonstrate the practical action of my love for you, my words are empty and meaningless.
If I provide for you a lavish lifestyle and cater to your every need but do not choose to live in relationship to you in a way that is loving, I am not really in relationship with you at all. My behaviour is just one more strategy to meet my own needs. Without love, I will always treat you as an object for my personal gratification.
If I sacrifice myself for you, appearing to give up my desires in service to you, but do this without love, no one gains anything. My actions are merely another form of self-indulgence.
Love chooses to be patient. This means I will stick with you even at those times when our relationship may be painful.
Love chooses to behave in ways that are kind. To be kind is to be generous towards you, making space for you to be the person you are, rather than demanding you be the person I might think I would like you to be.
When I choose to love you I will not indulge my petty emotions. I will choose to be gentle towards you and to let go of those small irritants upon which it is so easy to focus. We can all find them, if we look hard enough. But, clinging to an endless litany of little complaints will corrode the love in our relationship.
Love does not insist on winning. It is ready to let go, to surrender, to lay down the need to be right all the time. I will know I have chosen love when I am no longer determined to get my way.
Resentment and irritability are sure signs that I am walking away from love.
When I take delight in your failings and emphasize what I perceive to be your flaws, I have given up on love.
Love always seeks to see the truth, even when it may be painful.
There are times when love simply puts up with things as they are.
When I choose love I commit myself to trust you even when I feel as if your behaviour has let me down.
My love for you never gives up hoping we will continue to grow and prosper together.
Love is the ultimate power that generates and sustains life. It is the enduring force of the universe. It will never be defeated.
Everything else is temporary.
I know that I do not understand life fully. I understand neither myself nor you completely. There are so many ways in which my vision is inadequate. I am so often self-deceived.
We will only prosper in this relationship of love if we determine we will carry on together being as honest as we possibly can with ourselves and with one another. Anything less than this deep commitment to transparency and truthfulness is simply childish.
When I choose love, I choose to grow up into that fullness for which I know in my deepest being, I was created. I trust that as I stay open to love and to you, I will see more clearly and understand more accurately. One day I will see fully how love always wins.
The greatest things in my life are my choice to trust, my determination to look forward in hope, and my intention to behave in ways that nurture love. But the greatest thing of all is to choose consistently to live more fully a practical active life of love.
**********************************
For the complement to this morning’s and yesterday’s posts on love, view the beautiful video by Amos Lee that Jacqueline attached in the comment’s section to yesterday’s post. It can be viewed at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aW85s8wX1LE
Here are the lyrics:
AMOS LEE – FLOWER
My heart is a flower
That blooms every hour
I believe in the power
Of love
Well, in this lonesome meadow
Well, as soft as a pillow
Ooh, I pray that we’ll go back
To love
I’m gonna reach on up, over that fear
Ah whenever I’m alone, won’t you please be near
I know there’s darkness before the dawn
Tomorrow’s comin’ and yesterday’s gone
I’m gonna get my baby, head upstream
Fall asleep in her arms and drift away in a dream
Gonna go out walkin’ in the mornin’ light
Well, I know that my tomorrow gonna be alright
Gonna be alright
Well, I never shall wither
Well, of course, I, I forgive her
Oh, please, Lord, deliver me
To love, alright
I’m gonna reach on up, over that fear
Ah whenever I’m alone, won’t you please be near
I know there’s darkness before the dawn
Tomorrow’s comin’ and yesterday’s gone
I’m gonna get my baby, head upstream
Fall asleep in her arms and drift away in a dream
Gonna go out walkin’ in the mornin’ light
Well, I know that my tomorrow gonna be alright
Gonna be alright
(Reach on up, whenever I’m alone)
Gonna be alright
(Reach on up, whenever I’m alone)
Gonna be alright
(Reach on up)
My heart is a flower
That blooms every hour
I believe in the power
I believe in the power
Of love
Of love
In A Spacious Place 
8 comments
Comments feed for this article
February 14, 2013 at 8:03 am
jaqueline
Oh I am so glad you liked the song Christopher!
It is off Amos Lee’s album Mission Bell, and that album has a few beautiful songs that are about light and love finding it’s way to you even while you are in the dark..
February 14, 2013 at 8:07 pm
knittingwithheart
Thank you for writing this insightful Valentine’s Day paraphrased version
of the Bible’s more traditional 1 Corinthians 13. I’ve re-posted it to my blog (http://knittingwithheart.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/a-contemporary-corinthian-classic) and hope this is alright with you ❤
February 15, 2013 at 7:20 am
lindsay
I love this post about love 🙂
February 16, 2013 at 11:18 am
lindsay
.
.
.
.
A Love Poem
Another dragging monologue holding her end of the beleaguered telephone,
giving sympathetic hmm’s and pinched aah’s in all the right places,
one might be forgiven for thinking she,
like you is working through a litany of betrayal and frustrations.
But it is in the monotony, her voice grins and breaks
with tumbling delight, which she tries to hide,
shuffling these troubled words aside, unintentionally.
For he delivers the first rose of the season to her, casually, tenderly, silently plucked
from 70 years of labour, dirt, sweat and rain, and endless cups of teabags.
You sense her awkwardness as she tries not to explain.
Years combine to honour, to bear, to graciously receive this rosebud moment
which you don’t register, though you feel their solid, reliable weight
and you find yourself wanting to smile and warm
and make a crooked joke because you can’t hold this tenderness alone.
So later when challenged on “Great Love is a Fiction”,
you ping over at the shattered fragments of you own life,
and vicariously register surprise, softly too,
presented in this way by two seasoned lovers,
the gift is you.
February 14, 2015 at 6:19 am
A Valentine Community | In A Spacious Place
[…] https://inaspaciousplace.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/i-corinthians-13-valentines-day-paraphrase-love-is… […]
February 4, 2017 at 6:41 am
true love | some rain, some shine
[…] https://inaspaciousplace.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/i-corinthians-13-valentines-day-paraphrase-love-is… […]
August 4, 2019 at 12:03 pm
Dan Lichti
Christopher Page, thank you very much for your post! My wife and I have been reading it for over two weeks and it is such a blessing for us!
Christ in us, the hope of glory. With us love is impossible, but with God in us all love is possible!!
June 27, 2020 at 7:20 pm
tpdrenoske
Excellent paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13 — the most insightful one that I have ever read. I found it on Jackie’s blog, knittingwithheart. Thank you for sharing it online.