Loving someone like a spouse or child will be the most rewarding endeavor you can experience. At the same time, it will also be the most frustrating and exhausting. If you want a love that lasts, you have to work on a love that builds the other person up. Selfishness and jealousy tears love down, but patience and kindness build up.
1 Corinthians 13:4
Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant,”
Easier Said than Done
Next to John 3:16, this is the most famous verse on love in the whole Bible. It has been read at weddings for centuries. What Paul expresses in these sixteen words is so simple, yet its power resonates with everyone. It tells us what love is and what it isn’t. Love is patient and kind, but it isn’t jealous, proud, or boastful. Who can’t understand that? Well, what is often easily read is extremely difficult to enact. It is easier to be impatient and rude than kind.
Love that Tears Down
Be careful of those attributes that tear love down. The dark side of love is areas like envy and pride. Envy is wanting something someone else has. If you see a couple that is affectionate and you don’t have that, it can produce envy. You then project that on your loved one. If it is not dealt with, it will cause larger issues down the line. Pride can manifest itself in so many ways. You can look down on your spouse and treat them like they are less than you. Pride can also be resistant to admitting fault. No one is perfect, especially in relationships, and if we never admit we’re wrong, it will cause the love to go cold.
Love That Builds
True love that builds is patient and kind. If you truly love someone, you are much more patient with them than you are with other people. You give them the benefit of the doubt and are willing to wait for them when you have long given up on others. The flip side is that you also have higher expectations of those you love, which can produce a quick trigger on your anger when you are stressed. Love also produces kindness in us. Our heart is moved by those close to us. We want to do nice things for them. These come naturally to those whom we have given our hearts.