Love is...rejoicing and recording rights

I remember it like it was yesterday. The sun was out and the Attaway brothers had a sweet game of hoops going in the driveway. On this particular day, like so many, we were on the same team playing out the final seconds of the championship game. The entire season was on the line. It came down to this moment, the final shot. Our young hearts lived for the game winning moment. We cultivated a passion for the winning shot. We wanted the ball in our hands when time was ticking down.

When it comes to love, we need to be the type of people who want the ball when the game is on the line. Daily we have the chance to hit game winners that will last a life time. Love is constantly rejoicing in what is good and what is right. Love at its best builds a long and beautiful record of rights. Love is a gift we give and it must be the shot we deliver when the relationship is on the line.

Love ceases to be love when it loses its commitment to rejoice.

We must build a habit of rejoicing. We must focus on what is good and right. We must keep a record of all the rights our significant other does, expresses and initiates. Life is so full of challenge and responsibility. We must find a way to rejoice or joy again and again and again within in our loving relationships.

We must find a way to rejoice or joy again and again and again within in our loving relationships.

While love does not hold onto a record of wrongs, it does keep a lifelong list of rights. Celebrating and acknowledging the good and the beautiful moments within a relationship are essential to love being shared and sustained. Couples who make it for the long haul are marked with positivity and cultivate encouraging exchanges regularly. As you commit to love, commit to recording rights. Commit to recording the small, simple exchanges of hope and kindness. 

Rejoicing in the love you share will increase what is good and right...giving you more reasons to rejoice!

Continue with me on the journey of love and check back for the next entry in the "Love Is..." series.

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
(1 Corinthians 13:4-7, NLT)