When Loving Someone Gets Frustrating: What Does It Mean to Never Give Up?
This is part one of a four-part blog series about loving people well in marriage, parenting, friendship, or any other relationship, based on the challenge and encouragement of 1 Corinthians 13:7.
Years ago, when Jeff and I lived in New York City, Tim Keller was our pastor. (It was a bit like sitting under C.S. Lewis every Sunday.) And I remember him saying something when he preached on 1 Corinthians 13 that made me look at this very familiar passage in a completely different way.
You know the passage. Love is patient. Love is kind. We hear those words at weddings all the time. But Tim pointed out that if we really understood the context of 1 Corinthians 13, we might not be quite so quick to quote it at weddings!
Why? Paul wasnโt writing those words to people who were loving each other well. The Corinthian church was struggling with division, selfishness, pride, and all sorts of other issues. Paul wasnโt giving them a beautiful description of love to carve into a decorative plaque and hang over the kitchen sink. He was showing them how far their behavior was falling short of it.
1 Corinthians 13 is a challenge for us to ask: Does that sound like me?
Itโs safe to assume most of us think we are pretty loving people. After all, we know how deeply we feel love for our spouse, our children, our parents, and our closest friends. And regardless, Iโm sure most of us try to show others the type of love mentioned hereโagapฤ love, which is based on a choice to value another person and seek that personโs good, as God does, regardless of how we feel.
But the feeling and the intent can be a very different thing from actually loving someone well in everyday life.
I discovered the same disconnect years ago during the research for The Kindness Challenge. The entire premise of that project was that most of us value kindnessโso we think we are kind! Yet we can be surprisingly blind to the little things we say and do that the people around us experience as actively unkind and negative.
The more Iโve thought about it, the more Iโve started to wonder: what if weโre just as blind when it comes to love?
Thatโs the question weโre going to be tackling over the next few weeks in a series Iโm calling What Does Love Really Look Like? 1 Corinthians 13:7 in Life.
In this series, as we examine whether or not weโre loving others well, I want us to use Scripture as our measuring stick, rather than our feelings. Specifically, weโre going to look at the concluding verse of that section of Paulโs letter. A verse that has launched thousands of memes, Hobby Lobby decorations, and bumper stickers: 1 Corinthians 13:7, which says:
โLove never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.โ (NLT)
And weโll start with those first four words: Love never gives up. Other translations say, โLove bears all things.โ The Greek word is stegล, which has the implication of โbearing up underโ something, or of closely covering a gapโfor example, of covering a gap in a building so well that water cannot get in and rot the wood.[i]
At first glance, the โlove never gives upโ phrase sounds fairly straightforward. Most of us would probably say we havenโt โgiven upโ on the people we love. Weโre still married. Weโre still parenting. Weโre still answering our momโs phone calls or meeting that friend for coffee. But what if giving up can happen long before we actually walk away from the relationship? What if we have started to let that gap get wider, and the water has started to seep in and soften the wood?
If weโre going to measure ourselves by Godโs standard, we have to look beyond whether weโre still in the relationship and ask how weโre showing up in it. We also have to ask whether we are actually covering potential gaps in order to prevent problems. So letโs get very practical about what it might look like to love in that way.
1. To avoid giving up, get curious.
Suppose youโve reminded your ten-year-old again to put his backpack by the door before bed. And the next morning? You find it on the floor of his bedroom.
You can sigh to yourself and think, Why do I even bother? He never listens. You can start the process of giving up on ever seeing change.
Or you can pause and ask, Why isnโt this working? Maybe โget ready for tomorrowโ means something completely different in his ten-year-old brain than it does in yours. Maybe he needs a checklist by his door instead of another verbal reminder.
When we try to solve a problem one way, and it doesnโt work, it is all too easy to conclude that the person is the problem. So the next time you reach that point with someone you love, pause before deciding you already know whatโs going on. Ask a question instead. What am I missing? Is there something I donโt understand? What would help this person respond differently?
Sometimes the problem isnโt that weโve run out of options. Itโs that weโve run out of curiosity. And curiosity can look a lot like love.
2. To avoid writing someone off, separate the person from the pattern.
Hereโs one way we can tell if we have started giving up: We start using words like always and never.
She always makes everything about herself. He never follows through. My teenager doesnโt care about anything. My sister is impossible.
Once weโve subconsciously assigned someone a label like that, we start looking for evidence that proves us right. And we stop leaving room for that person to prove us wrong.
Love doesnโt require us to pretend frustrating patterns arenโt real. Some patterns need to change. But instead of telling your sister, โYou never think about anyone but yourself,โ try, โI want to be able to babysit when you need help; but when you made those plans without checking with me, I felt like my schedule didnโt matter.โ
One condemns the person. The other addresses the problem while leaving room for growth. So pay attention to the labels youโve subconsciously attached to the people you love. Sometimes loving without giving up means refusing to decide that someoneโs worst pattern is simply who they are.
3. To avoid the temptation to stop trying, change what โtryingโ looks like.
Sometimes we give up because weโre exhausted from doing the same thing over and overโwhen what weโve been doing may not be what is needed at all.
In recent years, we have had several friends who have lost spouses or other loved ones, or who have gone through other really difficult life events. And Iโve heard friends say (and thought myself), โIโve asked so-and-so to let me know if they need anything, and they never do.โ It is easy to sadly shrug and give up, right? If they wonโt accept help, I guess thereโs nothing we can do.
Well, as I was thinking about this topic, it occurred to me: Maybe I need to change what โtryingโ looks like. Maybe what we need to do instead is to text, โIโm dropping dinner at your door on Thursday. Would 5:30 or 6:00 be better?โ
Another example is a harder one: Perhaps you have a relationship marked by someoneโs addiction and poor choices and have consistently tried to protect the person from hard consequences. It sure becomes easy to give up, right? But maybe the way to avoid that is to change what trying looks like by setting boundaries and allowing those consequences instead.
Love can never force another person to change. But in the ordinary frustrations of life with imperfect people, 1 Corinthians 13 gives us a higher standard than I tried.
So this week, as you evaluate how you can love those closest to you well, ask yourself these questions: What havenโt I worked to understand? What label have I put on this person? And is there a different way I can love them this week?
Side note: If youโre engaged right now, learning to ask questions like these before marriage can make an enormous difference. Because even two people who deeply love each other can see the exact same situation very differently!
Thatโs why Jeff and I are hosting a free webinar called โ5 Conversations Every Engaged Couple Needs Before Saying โI Do.โโ Weโll help you talk through the areas that are important before you walk down the aisle. So if youโre engaged, I hope youโll join us. And if someone you love is preparing for marriage, please send this their way.
For the rest of us, letโs go back to Tim Kellerโs challenge and read 1 Corinthians 13 through a different lens this week. Not as a beautiful description of someone elseโs love, but as a mirror for our own.
Because sometimes โlove never gives upโ looks very ordinary. It simply means we keep looking for the next way to love.
[i] Greek word definitions and background are drawn from the lexical tools available at BlueLetterBible.com and BibleHub.com.
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