Verse of the Day for February 3

This chapter is read at weddings, which has quietly softened it. Paul wrote it to a church that was suing each other, splitting into factions and competing over spiritual gifts.

Charity suffereth long, and is kind. The first word describes waiting under something without retaliating. The second describes being actively good to the person you are waiting under.

Read the list that follows and notice how much of it is negative. Envieth not. Vaunteth not. Is not puffed up. Doth not behave itself unseemly. Seeketh not her own. Is not easily provoked.

More than half of the definition is things love does not do. That is a strange way to describe an emotion, and a very useful way to describe a practice.

You cannot make yourself feel patient. You can decline to retaliate today, which is what suffering long actually consists of.

If love were a feeling, this chapter would be describing something you cannot be commanded to produce.

Most of it is restraint, and restraint is available to you this afternoon.