Week 1 of 14 — Love Is Patient
Love Is Patient
This Week's Story
I thought living out 1 Corinthians 13 would be simple. Just walk in love, speak in love, act in love. Then I got to the very first word. Patience.
In Haiti, Patrick was supposed to pick me up at 9:30 in the morning so we could finally claim a shipping container that customs had held for nine months. Nine months. Forty feet of medical supplies, school supplies, and mattresses for orphanages, sitting at the port while people waited.
Patrick showed up just before noon. He had left to buy phone minutes, even though Haiti has a sea of guys in red aprons selling phone minutes on every corner between here and anywhere. I sighed. On a scale of one to ten, I was only at a four. The day was young.
Then we drove the wrong direction to pick up some guys with giant scissors to cut the container seal. Then more stops. More phone calls. More Haiti. All day long, I kept repeating the same six words to myself: Love is patient. Patience is love.
Here is what that day taught me. Patience isn't waiting quietly while steam builds up behind your eyeballs. Patience is love deciding that the person in front of you matters more than the schedule in your head. I didn't master it that day. But I stopped keeping score against the clock, and that was a start.
Your Challenge This Week
Pick the one thing that tests your patience most — a person, a commute, a checkout line — and every time it shows up this week, meet it with patience on purpose. And pray for patience. Yes, that prayer scares me too. Do it anyway.
This Week, Day by Day
Where did you feel the first prickle of impatience today? Just name it.
Who was patient with you today? Did you notice at the time?
Sigh scale check. One to ten, where are you so far this week?
What did waiting actually cost you today? Anything real?
Did the slow moment matter as much as it felt like it did?
My Prayer This Week
Oh, Lord, help me acquire patience. Help me to learn and act in patient love. And please be gentle.
One note before we go any further: each week ends with my prayer, straight out of the book. This is how I talk to God. If prayer isn't your thing, read it as my hope for you this week — because it is.
Your Thoughts
Before anything else, answer this in the box below: What is love? One or two sentences. The first honest thing that comes to mind, not the right answer. And save a copy somewhere — your notes app, a sticky note, the back of a receipt — because you're going to need it in week 14. Then, as the week goes on, come back and add this: where did patience come hardest, and what happened when you chose it anyway?