Most Valuable (Friday Devotional)

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

- 1 Corinthians 13:7

My mornings start the same way every day. At 4:30, my alarm goes off and I stumble into the living room to pour my first cup of coffee. I spend the next hour curled up in a comfortable chair reading, then at 5:30 I lace up my tennis shoes and run 2 miles. By the time I’ve showered and gotten dressed, the rest of my family is awake and I spend some time with them before heading to the office. From beginning to end, it’s a routine that borders on ritual, beloved and unchanging. Whatever else the day brings, it always starts with my routine.

…except this week. And next week. And probably the one after that.

With a newborn baby at home, my morning routine is suddenly a thing of the past. Sometimes that’s because 4:30 is feeding time, and I’m too busy burping Katherine or changing her diaper to read. Sometimes it’s because Katherine woke us up so many times in the night that I’m loath to get up any sooner than I have to. And in the case of one morning this week, it’s because when I try to read, I’m too tired and stressed to focus on what I’m reading.

I’ve missed my routine, no doubt, and I look forward to the day when we’re all on roughly the same sleep schedule. But I realized something the other morning—and when I say morning, I mean 1:30 in the morning—when I was giving Katherine a bottle: even the things we value most pale in comparison to the people we value most.

In 1 Corinthians 13, Scripture’s famous “love chapter,” Paul tells us much of what it means to love—how love is patient and kind, how it keeps no records of wrongs, how it rejoices in the truth. And again and again, Paul makes clear that love is, at its core, unselfish. When you love someone, getting your way is less important than their well-being. When you love someone, your hopes and ideas can give way to theirs. Love, as Scripture says, “bears all things.”

On the cross, Christ showed us the ultimate example of love by giving himself for us, sacrificing his very life for our sakes. Those who would seek to follow him must understand that love is built upon that foundation: not affection or commonalities, but a willingness to sacrifice. For when we love, we are able to see what—and who—is truly valuable.