Love's a dirty job...... But someone has to do it.

Love is patient. That’s what the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13:4. Love is patient. What’s that mean? Patience is the kind of thing that has to be learned by kids when they’re on a long trip in the car with their parents, and that parents have to learn while waiting for their kids to shut up. Patience is waiting for a traffic jam to clear out on the DC Beltway. Patience is waiting for your kid to get in the game when you know they are as good, if not better, than the starters on the team. The list goes on. It always takes time. There is always angst. We want to see results. Impatience is the mark of youth and of the unlearned, the ungodly, and the privileged, who always get their way.

I hate to wait. I’ve been conditioned to hate to wait. I need it now. I want to rip open the package, add the water, throw it in the microwave, take it out and eat it all in one minute or less. No that’s too long! Why add water, just throw it in the microwave!

I get that way in ministry too. Why hasn’t that person changed? What’s wrong with them? Hello it’s in the Bible! That guy should be a pastor by now! Can anybody be on time? Once? Oh I wish the preacher would hurry up and finish, the football game starts in 45 minutes!

To be patient is to be “long suffering.” Could there be a better synonym for patience? Long suffering means it hurts for a long time. It means you don’t see results for a long time. It means you don’t get what you want for a long time. It means that you have to be around people you sometimes don’t like for a long time. It’s long, and it hurts!

Love is patient. Love suffers long. Love does not need immediate results because it is love, and if it did, then it wouldn’t be love. That’s what love is, it’s patient. It’s a dirty job. It means I stay with someone who I don’t love outwardly anymore, with the hope that the outward part will return, but if it doesn’t I stay anyway, because long ago I chose to love. Love is patient, and that means sometimes love equals suffering. It’s something we don’t want to do. It’s like unplugging the toilet. It’s like working in a coal mine. It’s like cleaning a sausage factory. We don’t want that job because it’s dirty and smelly, but someone has to do it, and that someone is us. So let’s man up and do the job we don’t want to do... That’s love.

Jesus came to a bunch of thankless hypocrites and loved them, even though they didn’t, and couldn’t love him back. He knew the job was dirty. He knew it was hard. He knew few would appreciate the difficulty of the task or the sacrifice required, but someone had to do it. He was that someone.

Patience is doing things we don’t want to do and changing things we don’t want to change. It’s a dirty job, but it has to be done to reveal God’s true nature of love. We haven’t always been successful; therefore we have not always loved in situations and relationships where patience was required, where suffering was necessary. Instead we’ve walked away.

Don’t condemn yourself. Be patient. Suffer long and suffer well. Get to know love that’s beyond the superficial emotion people associate with the word. If you do, you’ll do better next time.