Love That Goes the Distance
June 3, 2022
Love never gives up. 1 Corinthians 13:7 NLT
“This Is Us” is NBC’s wildly popular show of a family spanning several generations. Truly a family love story, the Pearson family begins with the love of a young man and woman who marry and have triplets. The extended family faces countless issues over the years, but their love and loyalty are binding cords that refuse to be broken. The show’s creator intended from the inception to have a show for seven seasons and refused the popular call to lengthen it because of its immense popularity. He believed the final episodes gave the proper closure for this story as Rebecca, the mother and matriarch, dies of Alzheimer’s disease after a long goodbye. Watchers gained multiplied insights about the privileges and pain of loving through this deep valley. Viewers identified so strongly that there were social media memes and gallows humor about requiring a few work-bereavement days to grieve their loss.
Why was this story so fascinating? By and large, it was because everyone craves love that endures, love that lasts. Love that won’t go away through your failures and foolishness. Love that holds on to you and rides the train with you all the way until it pulls into the final station. The Pearsons showed us so much love, like our hearts know it was intended to be, that we were gripped.
And yet the love Jesus enables shows even deeper, greater love. The mature love that emulates the love God gives us is enduring, persistent, and pursuing. It is not a fleeting or fading feeling. It is a pervasive commitment that runs so deep that it endures the challenges of life and remains steadfast. The traditional wedding vows uphold this love. Spouses take each other “for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part.” The foundation of this pledge is our knowledge that love is meant to endure.
Jesus modeled enduring love: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1). He gave us His one command to love each other as He has loved us, and then went to the cross and demonstrated the full extent of His love. Mature love loves like that: always enduring, not just when it is convenient or easy. It’s not off-again, on-again, but a forever commitment to seek the highest good of the other no matter the adversity.
And here’s the best news that the Pearsons didn’t know—that Jesus’ kind of love will not just stick with you to the train stop at the final station. It will go with you all the way home and stay with you forever.
- Thank You, Jesus, for Your love that lasts. Help me go the distance too.