Love suffers long and is kind

1 Corinthians 13:4-5 (NKJV)

4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;

Jesus gave a commandment to love one another. Here the apostle elaborates on the theme of love describing what love does and does not do.

God created humans to live a life of love. I saw an article in Fast Company magazine that confirmed this truth to me that we were made to live for others. The article was about a very successful man whom you have probably never heard of: David Kelley. Kelley is the founder of what many regard as the premier design firm in the country—Ideo—and a professor at Stanford University for more than 30 years. He is a creative genius. Unfortunately, at age 56, Kelley discovered a lump on his body, and the doctors told him he had cancer. Linda Tischler writes:

What ensued was sheer hell. Chemo, surgery, radiation. Mouth sores. A throat so raw he could barely swallow. Nausea so severe he couldn't concentrate enough to read or even watch TV. "I spent nine months in a room trying not to throw up," he says. The treatment wrecked his saliva glands and his taste buds. He lost 40 pounds.

Kelley is happily married and has one daughter. This is where the idea of being created for love comes in. As Kelley struggled through the difficult emotions that come with this kind of experience, he discovered his reason to live. Kelley says about his daughter:

At first, you think, "I don't want to miss her growing up." That's motivating, but not that motivating. It's when you manage to get out of yourself and start thinking of her that you get the resolve to continue. When you think, "I don't want her not to have a father"—then you want to stay alive.

What gave Kelley a reason to endure the suffering of his treatment was not the pleasure he would get out of experiencing life with his daughter, as wonderful as that would be. Kelley realized that what truly motivated him was the benefit he could bring to his daughter. What motivated Kelley at the deepest level was selfless sacrifice for another—love. We were made for this.

[Craig Brian Larson, editor of PreachingToday.com; source: Linda Tischler, "Ideo's David Kelley on 'Design Thinking,'" Fast Company (Feb, 2009), p. 80]

Love suffers long and is kind and is for the benefit of others. It lacks those things that would cause us to place a wedge between us and another person. There is no evil in love, but only good, kind and thoughtful acts.