The Mirror of the Word and other works by C.E. White can be purchased on her website, cewhitebooks.com or on Amazon.

“Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered.”

—1 Corinthians 13:4–5

Sometimes it’s easiest to grasp what this kind of love looks like by imagining its opposite. 

So let’s ask ourselves a few questions:

• Are we discontented and irritated when our expectations aren’t met?
• Do we avoid helping others if we can?
• Are we frustrated because we envy someone else’s life or progress? 
• Are we excited about something in our lives because it makes us feel like we’re better than other people? 
• Does it make us happy when we’ve surpassed others in some area? 
• Are we seeking our own desires at others’ expense? 
• Are we allowing ourselves to be easily offended and provoked into arguments or defensiveness? 
• Are we holding grudges and allowing bitterness and unforgiveness to fester in our hearts?

If we fail these questions, it’s often because we’ve stopped looking outward at how we can love others and gone back to looking inward. Our actions may be rooted in insecurity, fear, or selfishness; we worry that we won’t get what we need or want if we don’t exert control. 

To discover how we can change, it may do more good to ask what it would look like to be on the receiving end of a 1 Corinthians 13 kind of love. We would know that person truly wants our good and cares for us. It would remove fear and comparison from the relationship, allowing us to live in honesty, confidence, and peace with that person.

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