ON THE VANGUARD

UNFAILING
“Love never fails.”
I Corinthians 13:8a

“Love is in the air, everywhere I look around. Love is in the air, every sight and every sound.” Have you heard these words by John Paul Young before? It seems fitting as we are coming closer to Valentine’s day. All sorts of love songs are filling the radio waves, as well as pictures of cupid, hearts, and little stuffed animals hugging each other plastered in department store windows and such. But have we reduced Valentine’s day to simply hearts, chocolates, and a man in a diaper? For the next few days I want to focus on the topic of love and St. Valentine himself, and dispel the myths in order that we may gain truth. So let us first look, then, in I Corinthians 13.
Starting in verse 4, I am quite confident each one of us can state verbatim the characteristics of love. Love is patient, kind, not envious, boastful, or proud. Love is not known as rude or self-seeking, and true love in not easily angered or record keeping when wronged. Love rejoices in truth rather than in evil, and as such, it always protects, trusts, hopes and perseveres. But then we read of a single characteristic that I think tops the list. Love never fails.
How can love never fail? Here we are giving love human characteristics and then we are told it does not fail. I am human and I do fail, more often that I care to admit also. But not love. For many years this idea confused me. And then, while studying in a personal quiet time with God back in college, God answered my question. He took me to I John 4:7-8. John speaks that we should love one another and that love comes from God. If we know God then we know love, but if we do not know God, then we do not know love. Then comes the cake-topper, “…because God is love.” So in essence, John and Paul, though writing at different times, are actually writing together and in tandem. Let me explain.
If God is love, according to John, and love is all these thing that Paul writes of, then can we not substitute the word ‘love’ in our I Corinthians passage with the word ‘God’? Let’s try it and see how it sounds and if it speaks truth. “GOD is patient, GOD is kind. HE does not envy, HE does not boast, HE is not proud. HE is not rude, HE is not self-seeking, HE is not easily angered, HE keeps no record of wrongs. GOD does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. HE always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. GOD never fails.” That sure sounds like my God, and that sounds like someone who never fails even when I do.
So where do we go from here? Once again the answer is easier to read than to perform. The answer is back in I John 4:7-8. We must first know God and know His love for us. We can never be everything in Him until we are able to know His love for us. The voids in life that we have can only be filled by His love. Not until we embrace His love for us will we be able to love others as we are urged in this passage. And not until we know His love, and walk in His character of love, will we be free of failing. John Paul Young in some ways had it right. Love is in the air, and that love is God. I urge you to grab hold of God and know a true, unfailing love.