♡Love: The greatest of these.
Muting the clanging cymbals of our souls.
Middle school is a strange land, balanced between the freedom of elementary school and the independence of high school. It’s a place where you’re still kind of a little kid but also kind of a cool teen—and somehow also neither.
As the mom of both a sixth and an eighth grader, I have a front-row seat to the wonder and weirdness of being 11 to 14. Volunteering as a middle school youth group leader? That’s another adventure entirely.
It’s sweet…and sometimes stinky. When they’re not infuriating, there’s something beautiful in all their awkward unfolding. They’re figuring out who they are. (And what the best Axe Body Spray to shower ratio might be.)
I feel so tender toward them. I see myself in their insecurities and giggles, their drama and discovery, their besties and frenemies.
This week, we read from 1 Corinthians 13.
We’ve all heard this passage—it’s the classic wedding reading that, from A Walk to Remember to Wedding Crashers, shows up all over pop culture. Yes, it’s the classic wedding passage—the one we’ve seen embroidered on pillows or printed on coffee mugs.
“Love never fails…” we read, but how often do we really hear these words?
I’ll admit, I’ve often brushed it off as a Live/Laugh/Love kind of vibe. But as I listened to a seventh-grade boy read it aloud this week, I heard it differently.
As the world around us seems to create chaos and fuel our worst tendencies, I needed to hear about God’s love. When Christians seem to be known more for being the loudest than for how we love, I needed to hear about God’s love in me.
I needed to hear that all of this—this faith I’ve built my life around—really is the kind of love Paul wrote about in his letter to the Corinthians.
The Greatest of These
This November 2024 reading guide is designed to faithfully accompany you (and your family) through a season of accessible reflection, gratitude, and preparation. Each week’s Every Season Sacred (hardover, just $11 right now!!) reading features a reflection, Scripture, breath prayer, short family liturgies, and a bunch of connection questions.
Along with the readings this week, consider reflecting on this passage:
If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Love Doesn’t Fail
Paul writes that without Love, nothing else matters. Not knowledge, not faith strong enough to move mountains, not generosity—even the most selfless act means nothing without love.
This kind of Love isn’t sappy or sentimental. It’s a powerful Love—one that requires us to be more than we are on our own. It is brave to choose love.
And that’s why Paul goes on to say, “Love never fails.”
It’s easy to hear those words and think of loves that have failed us—relationships broken, parents divorcing, friends leaving. But maybe Paul isn’t saying love will never disappoint us. Maybe he’s saying that when we lead with love, God’s love is with us.
This Love—the very core of who God is—never fails.
When you lead in love, when you choose love above all else, the Love above everything will be with you. Because God is not just loving but is perfect Love. And that Love can not and will not, not tomorrow and not today and not ever—fail.
Known by Love, Led by Love
“I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
This is the deep work we have set out for us: To know Love fully and to be fully known by Love.
When we are most ourselves—and when I say that, I mean when we are most who God created us to be—we embody love.
If we actually believe that the Holy Spirit dwells within us, then we can practice patience. We can choose to embody kindness that is beyond our comprehension or understanding. We exist in a time and space where it can feel like faith and power are tied together, where some Christians believe that enforcing the “rights and wrongs” is what matters most.
But Paul puts love above all else.
Love is the center and the way.
Act Like It, Bruh
I imagine Paul feverishly writing to the Corinthians like a parent who has just had about enough. A parent who is rallying up the kids who have misbehaved and mistreated each other for the last time. Who is specifically outlining the grievances and combatting them with what not to do.
I imagine him being like this:
You call yourselves followers of Jesus? Okay. It sure doesn’t seem like it. If you are: Don’t envy, then. Stop boasting and indulging your pride. Stop dishonoring others and stop being so self-seeking too. Chill out — don’t be angry just for the sake of being angry — and don’t keep receipts against everything someone else does. Don’t indulge yourself in what is evil. All these things aren’t just bad for you, but they’re bad for others. You say you follow the way of Love? Then…act like it, bruh.
Know Fully, Be Fully Known
What’s more important?
A. Faith
B. Hope
C. Love
Well, spoiler alert: It’s love. However, I think there’s a whole contingency of people who call themselves Christians who say that their definition of faith is what’s most important.
They BELIEVE. They have the rights and the wrongs, the have and the havenots. They have a particular set of sins they’re okay with and a particular set of sins they’re not. To them, faith = power. Because with that, they can distort what Love is. Even though we see over and over and over again how the Scriptures define Love—and how it’s above all else.
We have an international readership here, but tensions are high in the US. Like, really high. Politicians choose power over service, boasting over humility, and evil over truth.
Good riddance, I say, because as Paul writes to the Corinthians—we’re to be set apart. We’re to choose love and keep choosing it, even when it’s not modeled to us. Even when it’s not rewarded. Even when it hurts.
Empires rise and fall. But these three remain: faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love.
How do we love?
A middle schooler in the front row raised his hand.
“If we don’t do all this all the time…does that mean we don’t love God?”
I imagined how Jesus would answer that. Probably with a story or a parable that would be examined thousands of years later.
In his letter, Paul was giving people a scaffolding to build their lives on—not a measuring stick. Paul knew as well as anybody that perfection would forever be an unattainable myth for the human condition.
He wasn’t telling people to be perfect—that would be a waste of (probably) perfectly good papyrus. (Is that what he wrote on? Papyrus? That word has to mean more than the terrible AVATAR font.)
He was telling people to walk in step with the Spirit, to make deep, genuine love a habit, and to let love be a guiding force in how they treated themselves and each other, both their neighbors and their enemies. He was encouraging people to live with Love—not as a demand but as an invitation.
Love is not a zero-sum game. It’s not about achieving perfection. Paul knew that nobody gets it right all the time. Maybe that’s why he gave us this scaffolding—to remind us that in the small, everyday choices, we can keep choosing love.
As a flawed human himself, Paul knew the Corinthians would be prone to error. He was just telling them to try to err on the side of love.
The Middle
“When I was a child, I thought like a child…” Paul writes. “But when I grew up, I put away childish things.”
Sitting with these middle schoolers each week—their big questions and struggles to understand who they are and who they’re becoming—I can’t help but think about the “in-between” nature of middle school. They’re at that edge, caught between childhood and adulthood, just beginning to put away “childish things.” But as they discover new layers of themselves, they’re also discovering new layers of love.
And maybe, if I’m honest, so am I.
Being with these kids reminds me that spiritual maturity isn’t just what we believe (faith) but how we live what we believe (love). The Love Paul writes about is something we grow into, the way middle schoolers grow into their skins. Just as they’re learning to navigate friendships and trust, I’m learning to navigate Love in a deeper way, with more patience, kindness, and forgiveness.
Whether we’re 13 or 43, putting away “childish things” doesn’t mean becoming cold or closed off. It means opening ourselves up, trusting that Love—real, steady, patient Love—will keep growing within us.
Maybe we’re all a little like those middle schoolers, learning to choose Love over and over again—even when it’s awkward, even when it’s hard.
What would it look like for you to choose Love when it’s inconvenient, when it’s misunderstood, or even when it feels unnoticed? How might that change you—and maybe even shape the world?
Breath Prayers for Monday - Friday
It’s okay to feel tired. It’s okay to feel unsure of what’s next. But even in the questions, even in the weariness, Love is steady. You are not alone. Keep breathing. Keep showing up. And trust that God is breathing new life into you and through you.
This week, as you draw on these weekly breath prayers and the following guided reflection questions, let them be both a balm and a motivation.
When patience wears thin, or kindness feels out of reach, return to your breath. God is present in the pause.
May each inhale be an opportunity to receive Love—and each exhale a chance to extend it to others.
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