34. Never fails…
Love never fails. But where there are prophesies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away…. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:8, 13
We have talked about God’s unfailing love before in this series, today we explore it further as we consider not only God’s unfailing love but the unfailing love of family, friends when life just seems to throw bricks at us.
Don’t you just hate it when your favourite appliance fails – recently it was our coffee machine. My husband pulled it apart, tried everything to get it going again but to no avail. None of us like it when something fails in our lives.
But everything fails at some point – the washing machine, the train system (ours fails all the time!), our carefully planned finances, our health, our friends and family. We are, none of us, immune to failure. We all experience failure – an exam, a work project, parenting – we all know how it feels, and it isn’t pretty.
So isn’t it great to know that there is one thing that will never fail – true, deep, unconditional, abiding love. It is one of the three things that remain when everything else is stripped away – faith, hope, and love and the greatest of these is love.
When Job sat in the pit of despair after losing all his possessions and his children there was just one thing he knew – that God’s love had not failed him, it was still there in the pit with him. The other significant love that was still there was his wife. She is not mentioned much but I reckon her love also helped to sustain him through all the things that failed him.
When my health failed me with a cancer diagnosis three years ago, I was able to cling to the love of God and family and friends as an anchor to help me weather the storm. There have been many times over the years when my children, my parents, my friends have failed me, or I have failed myself but always there is love that had seen me through.
Remember this, love never fails. Everything else may drop away, everyone else fail you, but God and those who truly love you will stand with you in that love. Hold onto the love of God, and the ones you can count on, when failure seems to be all there is.
Prayer: It seems so easy to cave in under the pressure of failure. To simply say I can’t get through this, success is impossible. Life will never be the same again. But your love never fails, regardless of what I face in this life. You are always there for me, the one constant. Today I want to just sit and bask in your love, soak it up like the sun’s rays, be strengthened for the battles I am facing.
Amen
Action: Today, store up love in your heart against the times of failure.
Journal your thoughts…
