Love Always Protects

You can't trust someone whose main goal is to protect himself. He does not love you. Love must enter into trust. Love does not draw lines. It cannot say, "I'll protect you as long as I don't lose anything." The amazing stories of our armed forces is that they have gone into dangerous situations. They haven't said, "I'll protect my country as long as it doesn't cause me harm." They have a love of their country and their families and their freedoms that cannot draw lines.

Love always protects. It doesn't put protection on a clock. It defends the one that is loved. It is the husband who protects the safety of his wife by going to her place of employment when she has had to work late so that she will safely arrive home. It is the mother who holds her child during a thunderstorm in the middle of the night. It is the friend who does not enter into gossip. Love holds this line.

Love always protects. It doesn't waver with public opinion. It doesn't itself as a protector one day and forgets the one it loves the next because others, even a majority, have turned their hearts away. Love protects when it must stand alone. It is the one who can be counted on.

Love always protects. Even if the person who is being protected is wrong. It doesn't make excuses. It doesn't shy away from the consequences of the wrongs. It is like the story in westerns where the sheriff protects the criminal from vigilantes who want to hang him without a trial. The sheriff may know he is guilty but protects the criminal so that justice can be served.

Love always protects. It protects when it administers the consequences of sins. It votes for the jury conviction of "guilty" when the accused is proven to be such. It takes that person away from a society that he is hurting. It puts the child in "time out" so that he will learn to obey his parent. It draws boundaries around the spending of a wife whose debt is destroying the family. It protects those who can't protect themselves by standing up for those others are hurting.

Yes, love always protects.

Who has this love that protects? 

Well, God does.

And through Him we have it too.

1 Corinthians 13:7 (NIV)
⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.