This is the Way of Love

'Two Men with Umbrella', Photographer Unknown, c. 1890

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy

But don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate

If I speak God's word with power
Revealing all his mysteries

And making everything plain as day

And if I have faith that says to a mountain,

"Jump" and it jumps

But I don't love, I'm nothing.

If I give everything I own to the poor

And even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr

But I don't love, I've gotten nowhere

So, no matter what I say

What I believe and what I do

I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up

Love cares more for others than for self

Love doesn't want what it doesn't have

Love doesn't strut

Doesn't have a swelled head

Doesn't force itself on others

Isn't always "me first"

Doesn't fly off the handle

Doesn't keep score of the sins of others

Doesn't revel when others grovel

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth

Puts up with anything

Trusts God always

Always looks for the best

Never looks back

But keeps going to the end.

We only see a portion of the truth

And what we say about God is always incomplete

But when the Complete arrives, our incompleteness will be cancelled.

We don't see things clearly

We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist

But it won't be long before the weather clears

And the sun shines bright!

We'll see it all then

See it all as clearly as God sees us

Knowing him directly just as he knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness

We have three things to do

To lead us toward that consummation:

Trust steadily in God

Hope unswervingly

Love extravagantly

And the best of the three is love.

(From 'The Message' 1 Corinthians 13)