Love

Posted on April 2, 2015 by Graeme Wilson in Victory Call

If you’re reading this Victory Call today I have no doubt that at some point in your life you’ve thought about love. As little girls, most of us had fantasies or dreams of falling in love and being in love. We loved the idea of love’s embrace and love’s kisses; of being swept off our feet by our handsome prince and carried off into the sunset. After all, it was and is the stuff of any love story worth its salt.

The one thing we rarely saw or see in these movies is the life that comes after the sunset. What happens next? What does love look like the morning after, the day after; the year after?

Over the almost thirteen years that I’ve been privileged to serve at America’s Keswick, love is often a topic of discussion with the women I get to come alongside.

We all want it, desire it, and sometimes succumb to demanding the love we so desperately crave. We were, after all, created to know and love God, right? So, what happens to us? Why do things get so twisted up? Why does love seem to fail us the morning after or when the honeymoon is over?

I obviously can’t answer that question exhaustively in the space of the devotion. But what I can say is this: more often than not love by biblical definition was or is not being practiced. All too often the image of love being portrayed is greatly diminished from what the Lord designed or defined.

According to 1 Corinthians 13 most of us know that love: “suffers long and is kind; does not envy; does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never fails.”

The assignment I often give when love is in question is to take the above definition/description of love and break it down. Search your heart and see if your love (not the one whose love you seek) is patient, kind, etc.

Dear sisters, what does your love look like? Is it puffed up? Does it behave rudely?

Should you choose to take it, this is your assignment today. Do according to Psalm 139:23-24:
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Stephanie Dale Paul

Stephanie serves as part of the Addiction Recovery Team at America’s Keswick as Director of Women of Character. She has been married for over 30 years to Sesky Paul who is a graduate of the Colony of Mercy. They have two grown children.
Her single focus in ministry at Keswick is to image Christ in grace and truth to wounded and hurting women, encouraging them to make Jesus the truest Lover of their soul and the One in whom all hope lies.