Your Faith
Love Suffers Long
If someone asked you “What is the most important verse in the Bible?” what would you say? Or if you were told to sum up God’s message to us in His Word, with one simple statement, how would you respond?
For me, depending on which phase of immaturity I was walking through at the moment you asked me this, my answers would have been as widespread and varied as you can imagine, ranging from “Be ye holy, even as I am holy,” to “Go and preach the Gospel to all the world.” Although these truths are clearly quite important, they are not what Jesus responded with when He was asked.
In my song “Love Suffers Long” you hear three different stories, one per verse, of three very different people. There is an internet astrologist, a shouting preacher, and a one-legged man on a subway. Two were very misguided; one had the answers to all our questions and probably didn’t even know it.
THE ASTROLOGIST LADY
I was online one night reading email and checking sports scores when a Chat box appeared with an invitation to talk from a lady who had “astro” as part of her screen name. She IM’d me after reading my AOL profile. She thought my name sounded angelic and mystical and tried to introduce me to something she was very excited about, “astrological signs pointing to present-day angels.” As she poured out her heart and passion for something she truly believed would give me peace and revelation, I loaded my scripture gun with verse after verse about divination, witchcraft, the angel of light and everything I could come up with to condemn her and let her know how awful she was for thinking this way. As the conversation heated up and the typing became more frantic and sharply pointed…she disappeared. She had enough of me and my Bible-thumping and decided to just click off the Chat Box. I felt awful but there was nothing I could do. She was gone. I tried to convince myself that “God’s Word wouldn’t return void” but in this case I knew that my self-righteousness toward the end had wounded her and now there was no chance to make it right. All that she knew was that she came in contact with yet another “rude Christian.”
THE SHOUTING PREACHER
Living in Tennessee is much different than New Jersey (where I grew up) in many ways, not the least of which is radio. In the New York Metropolitan area the radio waves are filled with Hip-Hop, Latin, classic rock and top-40 along with all the news and talk you could bear. There are no country stations to speak of, hardly any Christian stations and definitely no Southern Gospel.
I was driving around Nashville flipping the stations one day, when I came across the sound of a man shouting at the top of his lungs about the depravity and immorality of today… homosexual sinners running rampant…the fires of hell await those who…, he continued on and on, screaming his head off with hate and anger at what he felt was the abomination of the nation. I was half amused and half horrified as I imagined his bright, red face and fiery eyes hurling verbal brimstone down upon his congregation. During the break the station identified itself as a Gospel radio station, preaching the Good News to middle Tennessee. I sort of laughed. This was anything but good news I was hearing. I wondered if the astrology lady pictured me the same way I was picturing Brother Brimstone.
THE ONE-LEGGED MAN ON THE SUBWAY
After a painful break-up I decided to move back to New York for a while and completely change my surroundings in an effort to forget what was a tragic loss for me. I worked in downtown Manhattan for AT&T and had to commute about 50 miles by train, which is about 2 hours each way. I was forced to spend this time everyday alone with my thoughts. Many times I would pray, read, and write, but most of the time I would just think. The more I pondered my predicament the more difficult time I had forgiving. The strangest people get on and off the train in New York. There are businessmen and women, actors and actresses, prostitutes, drug-dealers as well as many normal everyday people, each with a story to tell and a deep determined look in their eyes, some of pain and grief, some of joy and excitement, some of resigned indifference.
One man hobbled onto the train each day with a cane and an obvious wooden leg. I always wondered what happened to him, what his story was and how he could be so content with such an awkward prosthetic appendage. I sat next to him one day and after some small talk, I managed to get up enough nerve to ask him what happened to his leg. He told me some story about being in the army and working on a vehicle with a guy who deliberately put him in danger by not securing the jacks properly or something like that. I don’t remember the details but I do remember that he had absolutely no animosity toward this person. No tinge of bitterness or angst. He spoke very matter-of-factly about the man and this incident as if nothing was wrong. I was astonished over the amount of peace he had. I realized how in my personal pain I could barely speak about my break-up without spewing some of my hurt and hatred into my words. I asked him how he could forgive the person who caused his leg to be crushed, he said “when you pray for the person you hate, you’ll notice that the person may not change, but you certainly will”. I explained my heartache and loss, and how I sometimes feel like an amputee myself (although I’m sure he was amused that I would compare my loss with his).
WHAT'S THE ANSWER?
So back to the questions; “What is the most important verse in the Bible, or, if you were told to sum up God’s message to us in His Word, with one simple statement, how would you respond?” Jesus answered, very plainly and clearly when He was asked. His response was something like this; “Love God with all you got…that’s the answer! Oh… and also, Love each other as well…this is the whole message of the Bible.”
Matthew 22:34-40 - But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
Love is the answer. It’s plain and simple to say, yet confusing and complicated to live out. Why? Because there are so many interpretations and definitions of the simple word…Love.
I worked at Capitol Records in Nashville for years. My office was right next to the A&R office where they listen to all the new songs that writers submit for Garth Brooks and the other artist on the label to consider. Far and away the most popular theme for songs is; you guessed it...Love. There is love between men and women, love for a town, a grandmother, grandma’s cooking, a guitar, a tractor, a pin-up girl on a tool ad…etc. all varying forms of the same word. I think the Apostle Paul understood that this word that carries so much importance must have a clear definition, so he wrote the most famous Love Chapter of all;
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 - Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Take a moment to think about God’s love. He really, really loves you, more than you probably know. He also loves those around you and wants you to love them too. How do you love them? Use Paul’s advice and be patient and kind, be gentle and meek not envious or rude. Don’t seek your own way. Don’t keep an account of all the wrongdoing of others and get use to the fact that you may have to put up with stuff. In other words be long-suffering because real love suffers long. 
"Love Suffers Long"
I met a woman on the internet last night, who tried to teach me all about astrology. It started friendly then it turned into a fight, when I attacked her words with my theology. I hurt her feelings and she clicked right out of sight, now I feel I owe her an apology.
Love, Love, is never unkind, it’s gentle and meek, and love does not seek its own way, Love, will never remind or keep an account of the wrong. Love suffers long.
I heard a preacher on the radio last week, who shouted to a crowd about morality. With fear and anger in the words he chose to speak, and hate for those in homosexuality. His voice was anything but patient, kind and meek, perhaps he feels that’s not his personality.
Love, Love, is never unkind, it’s gentle and meek, and love does not seek its own way, Love, will never remind or keep an account of the wrong. Love suffers long.
I ride the subway with a man who lost a limb but wears a wooden leg as if he doesn’t care. One day he told me how someone did this to him, but he’s long since forgiven him in prayer. I said that I feel I’ve been amputated too. Somebody ripped my heart apart not long ago. I said if I can not forgive then how can you, he said when your love suffers long, you know.
Love, Love, is never unkind, it’s gentle and meek, and love does not seek its own way, Love, will never remind or keep an account of the wrong. Love suffers long.