1 Corinthians 13:4-8a 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.
So last week I wrote a post called Run the Race in which I talked about the passage from Romans 5:3-5 which reads Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings,because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Now, bear with me a for a minute. Because I still want to talk about how love for our husbands is respect and how respect is perseverance. But first, I want to get through this Romans verse.
I used to coach volleyball. Volleyball is a sport in which you play in an area which is 30 ft by 30 ft with 5 other people. The actual floor space you cover is pretty small. Running sprints seems totally unnecessary as a player. You don’t RUN in volleyball, so why should I RUN at practice? At least that was my attitude as a player. As a coach however, my girls ran a lot. A lot a lot. They ran as part of drills. They ran when a ball hit the floor. They ran to get tired to see how they played tired. They ran. And ran. And then ran some more.
Now to go back to the original verse, I would be willing to bet that the “long suffering” my girls went through was the 7 sets of sprints they ran at the end of practice. Perhaps you are familiar – you start at one end touch a line and run back and touch the next line and run back – until in essence, you’ve sprinted the court three times which counts as 1 for the set. After two hours of grueling practice, I have no doubt that this was the long suffering part. Sweat poured off of those girls. I heard hard breathing. I saw red faces. And do you know what I did? I yelled. Barked. Reminded them that each line was an opponent. Reminded them that being tired is good. The first weeks of practice, those seven sprints produced a glare like none other. The close of practice huddle was breathless, sweaty, and quick. They were done and ready to leave.
But this amazing thing happened – about 3 weeks into the season, these sprints suddenly got faster. I could schedule less time for them at the end of practice. We could do them more than once in a practice. The long suffering of these sprints was producing exactly what we expected it to – perseverance. Volleyball may not seem like it has a lot of ground to cover on an individual point, but once you play up to 50 points a game for up to 5 games, perseverance is absolutely essential to players. And the long suffering in those sprints was building persaverence.
It’s one thing to play 5 games. It’s another thing to come out ahead in 5 games. The back and forth and changes in momentum are hard work. The perseverance that starts coming out of all of those sprints becomes evident in a game. How do the girls act in a time out? In between games? When they are up 5? When they are down 5? Keeping their team up, brushing off mistakes, and continuing to play to the best of their abilities is the character that develops after experiencing long suffering and learning about persaverence.
And that character, that builds and builds, is what grows hope in what could be. Knowing that something better is out there. During coaching, it was the hope that a state championship would come out of what we were doing. [It did, by the way. The girls I used to coach won the school’s first ever championship in volleyball.] But championships aren’t built in one season. It takes years of long suffering, perseverance, and character to get to that point.
I know, for a minute there, it seemed like I forgot that I blog about marriage and families and not about volleyball. The few paragraphs I took to brag on my girls has a point.
Did that description of volleyball sound like marriage to anyone else?
I can’t speak for anyone else, but since I consider myself pretty average, I would bet that I’m not alone. When I read this passage from Romans, I tend to be drawn to the character and hope portion. I gloss over the rest of the passage. Why? Well, because the sprints aren’t fun. Really, playing 5 games isn’t all that fun, especially if you end up losing.
But to get to character and hope, long-suffering and perseverance MUST happen. As sinful humans, it’s usually how we learn from our mistakes. It’s how God calls to our hearts to keep moving forward.
And what about marriage?
Well, how many couples want to skip right to the character = hope portion and not go through the suffering? As we’ve already pointed out, Marriage is Hard. There will be long-suffering in marriage. You are a sinner married to a sinner. Suffering will happen. It might be something big or lots of little things, decades, years, months – and it will not look the same for everyone.
And I know it’s hard. I know that sometimes that 4th or 5th sprint is the worst. You’re tired. Can’t breathe. Can hardly stand from the weight of the first few sprints and can’t quite see the end in sight.
But the other thing that verse from Romans says is to REJOICE in the suffering. Why? Because it’s not just suffering for sufferings sake. It has a purpose. To grow in perseverance, character, and hope.
To get back to the love = respect – if love always perseveres, then we KNOW that sprints we are running, the suffering we are experiencing has a purpose. That if we are seeking the Lord, it will persevere. Our respect journey will weather suffering. Our husbands may or may not change. People you love may not get why you respect your husband in this way. The world will mock you.
Continuing to do it is the perseverence. And we know that as love (respect) perseveres, it builds character and hope. And we get the best versions of character and hope from perseverance.
Think about your long-suffering sprints in marriage. I dare you to pray and ask God for ways to rejoice in them. He is teaching you about perseverance.
And I know it’s SO hard. If you need prayer during your long-suffering, please click here to send a request to our prayer team.
What about you? How do you rejoice in long-suffering? How do you define perseverence in respect? Would you share with us?
This is part 5 of a series on 1 Corinthians 13. To see the rest of the series, click here.
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