A Never Failing Love

Love Never Fails. The phrase you see before you carries a great deal of significance and weight in my life. Most recently, it was the overarching theme to the week of service I spent in Mexico. It also brings warm memories to my heart as it reminds me of my wedding day, in which Aaron and I used Brandon Heath’s song of the same name to light our unity candle and begin our life together as man and wife grounded in Christ. What do these words really mean? Why do they carry the weight that they do?

The phrase “love never fails” comes from a passage of scripture in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13. For those of you familiar with your Bibles, you know this to be the “love” chapter. For those of you who don’t know what that means, it is the set of verses from the Bible that usually show up during a wedding that begins “Love is patient, love is kind…” If you’ve seen the film A Walk to Remember, you will hear this passage read at Jamie and Landon’s wedding ceremony. (Whoops, late spoiler alert!) Though a wedding is the perfect setting for this verse, there are many other times to put its wise counsel into practice.

Love is not just between a man and a woman on their wedding day, but it can be between a parent and child, or two friends. I think the Greeks had it right when they created different words for the unique kinds of love that we experience. In English, we say we love our spouse, but we also say we love ice cream. Not quite the same, is it? The kind of love that Paul, the writer of 1 Corinthians, is talking about is an unconditional love. Some synonyms would be unrestricted, unquestioning, or wholehearted. Man, that is the kind of love that we all want! Right? Most Brides aren’t walking down the aisle thinking, “Well, he better not love me all the time.” NO! Brides want to run to that man knowing that he is all in for her.  That is the kind of love that doesn’t fail.

So does that love really exist? I’m sure you can find countless examples where love did fail, and it may have personally impacted you. My heart hurts for those of you who have been wounded by love. There is good news, though. That kind of love does exist! God loved us enough to send Jesus to die and take the fall for of all the wrong things that we have done, including failing each other in love. The beautiful thing is that the kind of love we desire, that unquestioning and unrestricted love, we can experience through knowing God. It sounds crazy, right? How amazing is it that the God of the universe loves me, loves you? It is so mind boggling, but so true. The kind of love that never fails is His love. It comes from God. That is why there is so much significance to that truth in my life. Oh, how I hope you know that love in your own life.

God’s Love Never Fails Us.