The Apostle Paul wrote that love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Many translations have changed “all things” to always. Always sounds good, but the truth is, I believe it changes the entire meaning of the statement. Always is a statement of time, a vague statement at that. Have you ever noticed that traditional wedding vows don’t say, “I promise to love you always” but instead they say “I promise to love you for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health”? The traditional vows are trying to make a statement not about time but about circumstance, not that I will love you always but I will love you through the best and the worst, through what I am excited about and what I dread, through your victories and through your failures. I believe that Paul is putting the same face on his description of love in I Corinthians. To say that love always protects, believes, hopes and endures sounds good; but to declare that love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things means that love has considered the best and the worst and has chosen to remain constant no matter what the circumstance.
This is the love that God has given us. He has not given a grand statement that has not been thought out or unprepared for. God has seen us already, in our worst sin and in our greatest obedience and has chosen to love us in the midst of each. He loved us when we were His enemies and He loves us when we are His friends. God’s love is constant because it does not depend upon us doing what He wants, He has set His heart to love us and He desires that His love will change us from rebellious to repentant, from selfish to humble, from fearful to peaceful and from hopeless to hope-filled. When God said, “I love you with an everlasting love”, He was not just referring to some form of time that He had not yet experienced, He was saying that He has seen the end and the beginning and has chosen to love us eternally.
Trust God today, trust His love, trust His grace, trust His power and trust His Word. If we will choose to trust God then we will become the lovers of God, and the more we love God the more we will be able to love those around us. Everyone desires to be loved, but not simply to be loved always, but to be loved through all things. God has loved us in all things, I pray that we will become those that love those that God has placed around us as well, not with limitations, but to truly learn to love through all things.