What is the L in Valentine's Day?

Valentine's Day is a great day to celebrate! But what are we really celebrating? I think for many it's about the attraction and physical side. Now that's good but if that is all there is it can focus too much on the small "l" or lust (that's more about you). I think it is or should be about the big "L" or LOVE (that's more about the other person). And what is LOVE really?

The best definition I have seen is in the Bible in 1 Corinthians 13. Here are the key descriptors. I like the Philips Version.

Think today about how you stack up. And think about some tangible way to live these qualities out today. Heck try living these principles for the next month. And tell us you story.

BTW, I just read this passage to my wife Mary who lives these out and asked her how I doing (yikes)! She said I wasn't failing:) Whew!

 love - the highest and best gift

13:1-3 - If I speak with the eloquence of men and of angels, but have no love, I become no more than blaring brass or crashing cymbal. If I have the gift of foretelling the future and hold in my mind not only all human knowledge but the very secrets of God, and if I also have that absolute faith which can move mountains, but have no love, I amount to nothing at all. If I dispose of all that I possess, yes, even if I give my own body to be burned, but have no love, I achieve precisely nothing.

13:4 - This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience - it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.

13:5-6 - Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. It is not touchy. It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.

13:7-8a - Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.awe