‘Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud ‘
1 Corinthians 13:4
I know we spoke about patience earlier in this series, about putting it on, the way Scripture tells us to put on longsuffering, aka patience (Colossians 3:12). But here, I really want us to see it from the angle of time. You cannot separate patience from time. The moment you remove time, you have removed patience. So when we say love is patient, what we are also saying is that love allows time. Love cannot be hurried. You cannot speed up what takes seasons to grow.
The love that is already inside you, yes, it is there. The Bible says the love of God has been poured out in our hearts (Romans 5:5). So we are not waiting for love to arrive. But the depth of that love, the maturity of it, the way it expresses itself in relationships, that part takes time.
A bond in time
When David and Jonathan met, the Bible says their souls were knit together (1 Samuel 18:1). That was instant. There was a connection immediately. But by the time Jonathan was standing before his father, defending David, putting himself at risk for him (1 Samuel 19:4–5), that relationship had grown.
And later, when Jonathan eventually died in battle, that bond did not end with him. When David became king, he deliberately looked for someone from Jonathan’s lineage to show kindness to, for Jonathan’s sake (2 Samuel 9:1). Now that kind of love, the kind that goes beyond a lifetime, that is not formed in one emotional moment. That is formed in time. In shared history. In seasons.
And I am using relationships as examples because that is where love is most visible. Not just romantic relationships. Friendships. Family. Community. Church.
Give it time
Even with people’s flaws, sometimes what we are calling frustration is simply our unwillingness to give time. Habits do not just disappear in one conversation or interaction. And if love is patient, then love will allow room for the process of times and seasons. Even your love for God deepens with time. The more you fellowship with Him, the more rooted you become in Him. It does not happen in one prayer. It happens in continued presence.
So when you pray about patience, do not only pray, “Lord, help me endure this person.” Pray, “Lord, help me allow time do its work. Help me not to cut off what simply needs to grow.”
In Jesus nmae. Amen
Shalom
