Love is Patient

I was thinking about one of the scriptures in the last post, 1 Corinthians 13, where it says, "Love is patient." I never noticed before that patience is the first quality of love mentioned. It made me think of Psalm 130, where we are called to wait for the Lord:

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
My soul waits for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.

O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
for with the LORD is unfailing love
and with him is full redemption.
He himself will redeem Israel
from all their sins.

If I am called to love God, then I am called to wait for Him, in faith and expectation. If I get tired of waiting for God to move--in my family, in people I love who are running away from God, in my own heart and my own life--if I'm impatient with God, I'm not loving God. Love is patient. Love trusts in God, waits on God, hopes in God. Perhaps this is why Paul links faith, hope and love--to love God is to trust God; to love God is to hope in God.

Lord Jesus, please give me patience to wait for your redemption to come in this broken world. Help me to hope in you, to trust in you, to wait on you. Help me to love you. And may my love for you overflow to every relationship in my life.