Love Is Not Proud – Love God Love People

1 Corinthians 13:4b-5a

…[Love] does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking…

The Pride of Tibbles

My wife and I have two cats, Tibbles and Timber. We adopted Tibbles first (he was named by a four-year-old, and we decided we liked the name and kept it). It took a week or two, but Tibbles got used to living in our home and eventually started acting like he owned the place. He liked to think he was the most important person in the house.

About a month after adopting Tibbles, we adopted another cat we named Timber, (because my wife likes to put names together that start with the same sound). Having a new little brother upset Tibbles; he did not like having to share the spotlight. He thought he was too important to allow another cat to live in his house, and so he was very mean to Timber, who was much smaller. He wrestled Timber down until Timber meowed in fright and generally made Timber feel very unwelcome. Tibbles was proud, and that pride caused him to hurt Timber.

Opposites

Have you been wrongly proud in your life? Have you thought of yourself as being so important that you hurt others, taken things that don’t belong to you, or refused to share the things that your parents or God has given you?

This pride is the opposite of love, because love makes you focus on what other people need, and pride makes you focus on what you think you need. Boyd Bailey wrote about what the difference between love and pride looks like:

Love listens; pride talks. Love forgives; pride resents. Love gives; pride takes. Love apologizes; pride blames…Love asks; pride tells…Love builds up; pride tears down. Love encourages; pride discourages.

I hope you do more of the things that love does than what pride does. And if you have an attitude of pride, ask God to help you get rid of it and replace it with an attitude of love.

Eventually, Tibbles learned to love Timber too. Sometimes they fight, but more often they wrestle to play, and they even snuggle up to stay warm when they nap. They’re much more adorable like that.

This story is a part of Love God Love People on Keys for Kids Radio this Valentine’s weekend.  Let’s love by putting other’s first today and all year long.