“It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” 1 Corinthians 13:7 NIV
Let’s remind ourselves why the Apostle Paul is taking so long to explain what love is and is not. It’s because the church in Corinth needed to know. Mistrust was a common element in their church.
I know some reading this today will have experienced trust being broken. A promise not kept, a secret revealed or a boundary crossed. You have had to learn to trust again. To love again.
Choosing to trust is always an act of courage. Love is indeed that, courageous.
But if we don’t take that step of faith to trust we miss what it is to be human at the deepest level.
We were created for community and for it to be at the love level and that involves trusting each other.
Our calling and our destiny is better discovered and expressed through community than trying to convince a community of our own individual and personal revelation of the ministry Jesus wants us to do.
We were never meant to go it alone.
- Such singular approach to life holds too many temptations for stardom. ‘I did it my way’ is the song of the individual who will not share their life with anyone. Your marital status is not the sign whether you are doing life alone or not. I’ve known married couples not trusting each other and I’ve known single people who have opened their life and live vulnerable lives in a group of people they trust. The gospel was meant to be shared together. That takes trust and it therefore needs love.
How are your horizontal relationships? Who are you walking with? Who is holding you accountable and who is laughing with you? Share your life, learn to trust, it is better that way. As you get older don’t let the disappointments of your life prevent the fulfilment of new friendships of trust.
Missions Paul 