Love always trusts

1 Corinthians 13 gives the best definition of love that literature could hope to give. There are a few defining words I have always struggle to understand though. That's probably for good reason because love is often beyond understanding. The line that always gets me is the one that reads, "love always trusts". The more literal translation reads "love believes all things" but that doesn't make it much clearer to me. I believe the picture that this quote is portraying is that of walking by faith. Maybe another way to say it would be to say that "love doesn't need proof". One of my favorite movies is A River Runs Through it, something of a family biography written by one of two brothers the story centers around. The movie does a good job of portraying the words written in the book by including the philosophy and depth intended. There were two things that united the family together throughout the story, God and fly fishing. Near the end of the film, one of the brothers, Paul, is beaten to death in a bar over an outstanding debt he owed. Needless to say, there is great hurt and confusion within the family. The father asks his living son, Norman, what he really knew of Paul. Norman responds by saying that maybe all he really knew about him was that he was a great fisherman. Yet his father insisted he knew more than that. So the movie ends with the father giving one of his final sermons of his life reflecting on the family's difficult situation regarding Paul's death. Indirectly describing his son Paul's need for help and refusal to allow it, he ends by making the statement, "We can love completely without complete understanding." It's a beautiful line. I believe it says the same thing that the apostle Paul penned a couple millenniums ago that I just wrote of.
Both the passage and the quote from the movie mean so much to me for this reason; since I was little I've had a great desire to understand everything I involve myself with. To be quite honest, it's caused much heart ache, because there is much that I cannot understand. As a Christian, there are many circumstances in life that make no sense to me. You've heard it complained, "If God is a loving god, then why..." You can fill in the blank, and it's probably been pondered before. There has to be a point in life when we realize that God is the loving God, and the "why" of life and death is his to know.
Could it be that the option of faith that God gives us is necessary to shield us from much greater pain? The wise king Solomon wrote in the book of Ecclesiastes, "In much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain." Could it be that God is keeping the majority of the pain to himself so that we might have joy in faith? There has only been one man to walk the earth who was capable of knowing all things, and his life was one of great sorrow and pain. But praise be to God for the life that Jesus lived, because without it our faith would be in vain.

Love doesn't always make sense. In fact, love doesn't often make sense. Mother Theresa put it this way:

"People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered;
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway."

There are many things we know we ought to do, but do not end up doing because we can't make sense of it. It's that way with our lifestyle and careers. We settle, for lack of faith and for knowledge of pain. Faith is not stupid, but it is risky. For those of you who are like me and struggle with not knowing what you'd like to, let's rest easy knowing God knows what we do not. Let's continue to love when it makes no sense. Let's continue to be selfless when there is no apparent reward. Let's trust God when there seems to be no good reason. The book of Hebrews says, "Without faith it is impossible to please God, for he who comes to God must believe that he exists and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him." 

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen"(Hebrews 11:1). I don't know about you, but I am assured of the eternal life I hope for and I'm convicted that the God I do not see will provide. Because of this, I can always trust. I can always believe, even without understanding.