I often think about the meaning to this life. It took me a long time and a lot of searching to find an answer for my life. It seemed too simple and too easy at first, but in that comes the difficulty. When things seem too simple I want to complicate it, add to it, or find mistakes in it. For me the question came down to, “If everything was stripped away, what would I need most. Or on the other side, “what is at the center of everything good?” What is at the center of what completes my soul?’. What is love? I found the answer in the most obvious, yet overlooked place. I found it in an ancient book. The question has been answered for centuries, yet so many never find it. Here is what I found.
“If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
Have you heard this before? It comes from the Book 1 Corinthians chapter 13. What wisdom. For me this simple passage answered so many questions, like why and how we are made. If our creator values this above all else I think we should take notice. Read it again.
written by R. King
What is Love