The Most Excellent Way
This is the week for love and that makes me contemplate just how to tell the ones I love, particularly my husband Daniel, just what they mean to me.
My family is not what you would call a very demonstrative family, at least not when it comes to saying “I love you”. We know it, we don’t have to say it-that would be our motto.
But when it comes to my little family-husband and daughter-I can’t say it enough. So in this special week when we’re supposed to be all about love and letting others know our true feelings, how can I make that common but powerful phrase more special?
I have a few ideas, but they all seem to pale in comparison to the magnitude of the love I feel for them. A card just isn’t good enough. A purchased gift seems a bit cold. He doesn’t want flowers. What’s the value in a trinket to sit around and collect dust?
I think my problem lies in that I want my gift to be excellent-not good enough or even great.
Excellent-that is a word that means outstandingly good or of unusual merit. That is the word I always wanted to see at the top of my tests and homework when I was in elementary school. I knew that mark meant I had done my very best.
That word is also part of one of my favorite Bible passages and it so happens it also has to do with love. Many people know that 1 Corinthians 13 is considered the utmost chapter about love in the Bible. It is read at weddings. It is quoted almost as much as John 3:16 or the Psalm 23.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs,” is just a small bit of this beautiful passage.
The Apostle Paul did a great job in speaking of love, but the final sentence in Chapter 12 has always been my favorite part of the passage. That is probably in no little way connected to the fact that I have always been for the underdog in life. This poor phrase is so often overlooked that I feel sorry for it.
You see, it really is the simple, perfect introduction to Chapter 13. It just happens to come in the previous chapter. “And now I will show you the most excellent way,” writes Paul.
1 Corinthians 13 goes on to say, “It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
So this Valentine’s Day, whatever token I settle on giving my beloved, I know that the gift of love-the feeling, emotion, dedication-will be perfect because it never fails.
Happy Valentine’s Day.