Love often begins with a list of reasons. Because he's funny. Because she's caring. Because he understands me. It's beautiful, it's touching — and it's the childhood of love.
Paul knew this well. He writes: “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child” (1 Corinthians 13:11). Love too has its childhood — an age when we love for what the other brings us. And like every child, it is called to grow.
But toward what?
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”
1 Corinthians 13:4–8 (ESV)
Paul paints its portrait with a precision that lays us bare. This is not a list of qualities to hang on a wall. It's a being in motion, a love that no longer calculates, no longer keeps score, but turns entirely toward the other. A love that no longer asks “what's in it for me?” but simply whispers: I love you because you are you.
And that is exactly how God loves us. Not because we measure up. Not because we deserve it. Paul says it bluntly in his letter to the Romans: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). No “because” tied to our merit. It's a love that holds because it comes from Him — and “love never ends” (1 Corinthians 13:8).
John expresses it with the same force: “This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). God didn't wait for us to become lovable before loving us. He loved first (1 John 4:19).
Yet today, let's be honest: we still see only in part. “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror,” writes Paul. “Then we shall see face to face” (1 Corinthians 13:12). Our loves are imperfect, unfinished, sometimes clumsy. But this imperfection is not a condemnation — it's an invitation. An invitation to let God's love, the one who knows us fully and loves us anyway, gradually transform how we love others.
Fewer conditions. More presence. Less “because.” More “because it's you.”
For love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (1 Corinthians 13:7). And in the end: “Three things remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).