Tag: Love is patient

Ten steps to love

June 16, 2026

This is the title of a Hallmark romcom my wife and I recently viewed. It was an excellent film because the man and woman disagreed about her list-making. I am not a list maker. I do not create any kind of plan for my articles or books. I don’t ever outline a book before starting to write one.

There are many twelve-step programs that you can follow from AA, NA, or any other type of addiction you can imagine. I am constantly reading articles with numbers in them. Five Character Types for Your Novel is just one of them. Numbers seem to be something that a lot of people worry about. I don’t.

My focus is on listening to what my Lord and Savior is trying to tell me every moment of my life. One of the things that I have been working on for a while is a book that I have entitled “Douloi Marriage.” It is a manual for how to serve your husband or wife.

As I have been writing different chapters, one that has developed is Steps to Love. It is based on the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians from the Bible. You know the one that says love is patient and kind. This is the love that Jehovah has for us, and it is the best kind of love for married couples.

Patience is the first step to love because a marriage will not last if you cannot wait for your spouse. Longsuffering is the word in the King James Version. Kindness is next, and a marriage without kindness will never endure.

The next step toward love is to avoid envy. This ugly green monster shows its head when one of the partners feels the other is in a better role. I’ve seen wives who thought that they were required to do all the housework, and the man spent too much time on himself. This can also be reversed in other couples.

Some of the other things that love is not are boastful or proud. Humility embodies these ideas and is our fourth step, which is one of the attributes of Jesus that we all should emulate. Being selfless is another part of our path that we must follow in our marriages.

Getting angry with the one you love is the next emotion that we must avoid in our family life. Keeping records of wrongs can also destroy a relationship. Some of us like lists, and if you are the woman in the movie, the only lists you should have for your spouse are positive characteristics.

The last three steps that must be taken to keep love alive are truth, trust, and continuing to persevere in the relationship. We all know couples who have failed in these steps. These ten methods to keep our love alive can be a great deal of work. As you walk this path, keep in mind that you are a team and together with the Lord, you can accomplish anything.

©Copyright 2026 by Charles Kensinger

Love knows no boundaries

May 29, 2026

That is an excellent statement, until I tell you where I heard it. It was an ad for one of the local sex stores. I’ve not been to this establishment, but from the commercials I’ve seen for years, they have anything you need to stimulate your sexual activity. Videos, magazines, provocative garments, and sex toys are some of the things pictured.

Basically, what they are telling us is that sex should have no boundaries. The Old Testament Law sets many limits for sex, only between a man and a woman who are married. No premarital or extramarital relationships are allowed. Some say that the Hebrew scriptures allow multiple partners through polygamy.

That is not the true story that is in the Bible. The Israelites, as well as their neighbors, used these techniques to have large families to work the land. This also happened here in this country until the U.S. law restricted the practice. Utah had to restrict polygamy before it could be granted statehood.

Many Greek words are translated as the English word “love”. One that isn’t even in the New Testament is Eros. This is sexual love, or what I refer to as lust. I’ve covered this before: lust is an emotion, and I define love as a verb.

Phileo is what we consider to be brotherly love. Hence, Philadelphia is called the City of Brotherly Love. Brotherly love is the admiration that we feel for relatives. In some cases, this emotion can also be felt by friends. Once again, it is an emotional type of love.

Family love is Storge in Greek. Again, this is defined as an affection for not only those you are related to, but can also be for friends. C.S. Lewis also included a fifth type of love in his book “The Four Loves.” This fifth is what he defined as the likes that we make into love. That is what it is when you say, “I love chocolate,” or something else that is not really a love.

The fourth love is the Greek Agape, which is the love that Jehovah has for us which is an unconditional love. Paul tells us in First Corinthians chapter thirteen what Agape is. Patient and kind are the positives, and then there are a lot of negatives. He also tells us it is not envious, boastful, conceited, selfish, or acting improperly.

He lets us know that this type of love never ends like the others can. This Agape is what we should strive for with our spouses, family, friends, and even those we consider just acquaintances. Jesus does not restrict His Agape to only those who accept Him as their Savior and Lord. This is why He accepts you if and when you are willing.

©Copyright 2026 by Charles Kensinger

It’s in his kiss

August 20, 2025

Kissing in different cultures means varied things. There are also different types of kisses. On the cheek, the hand, the lips, or even the ear or back of the neck. Kissing in our culture is considered romantic. European, Middle Eastern, and other cultures greet friends and acquaintances with a kiss or two on the cheek.

Handshaking is the American method of greeting in most of our communities. As a Christian and a Baptist, I am very familiar with this process. We often modify the standard handshake. You and your friends or family may have a secret or non-secret way to greet each other. Organizations can have variations on the common greeting.

I want to talk about the romantic type of kiss. One of my favorite subjects for situation comedies. You take a prepubescent girl and a boy of a similar age, and a story of the desire for a first kiss and a distaste for the opposite sex. The variations are innumerable. Almost every TV show has had an episode based on this situation.

We all know that movies often feature storylines about kisses. Romantic comedies almost always require kissing between the two leads. Often, there is this kind of action between those who do not believe they are in love. I can think of many films where young people and sometimes older characters find kissing many others a fun thing to do.

Jewelry companies want us to think that their products will get us kissed. That has not been my experience. I can’t talk a lot about the subject of kissing multiple partners. I kissed two or three other girls before I started dating Cindy. When I began kissing her, I enjoyed it very much.

I think she also enjoyed it. She didn’t like it when I tried to kiss her with other people around. When I kissed her goodnight after a date, she never refused or acted like she did not enjoy it. As our relationship continued, so did my desire to hold her and kiss her even more.

As with most couples, we no longer spend time just holding each other and kissing as we did early in our marriage. Hugging and kissing are still part of our life together. It isn’t as large a part as it was in the early years. Three children, twelve grandchildren, and all of life’s time constraints take a toll.

Intimacy is still important. It is necessary for a strong relationship. It is a form of communication for us. We sleep in the same bed. Share a house and many other things. Our fiftieth anniversary is a year away, and I still enjoy being with her as much as I ever have.

I hope that your marriage is going well, also. A kiss is not the best way to tell if you are loved. Paul gives us a list of things that we should use to indicate if someone loves us. Patience and kindness are two of them. Work on kissing, hugging, kindness, and patience, and I think you will go a long way.

©Copyright 2025 by Charles Kensinger

I think I’m in love.

May 5, 2025

In college, this was a saying that many guys my age used. One of my friends or acquaintances would say this when we say a beautiful girl or woman walks by. A friend of mine at Southwest Baptist College in Bolivar, MO, changed that slightly. He was a ministerial student like me. He changed it to “I think I’m in lust.”

There is a difference between love and lust. Let me define the two words. Love is not an emotion. Lust is a desire for something sexual. I do not like to use dictionaries for words like love. Secular scholars are more interested in contemporary usages of the word and not what the Biblical examples indicate.

I agree with Paul’s definition of the love of God. You’ve read it in First Corinthians chapter 13. It includes patience, kindness, lack of envy, boasting, and pride. This is what we should strive for in our romantic love.

Do you know how to define what you mean when you say “I love you” to your spouse? The Association referred to it as “Cherish” in the song in 1966. “Cherish is the word I use to describe all the feelings that I have” is the opening line. This song also tells us that all the other guys say, “I love you.”

All they want is to touch your face, your hands, or hold you. Others say they will love you all the rest of their lives. When I was dating the girls were warned not to believe us when we said that we loved them. Most of these guys would use the line, “If you really love me, we should have sex.”

I never was one to do that. I had one girlfriend that I learned later and she stopped dating me because I never tried to have sex with her. Cindy will tell you that I haven’t had that problem for a long time.

On television and in movies, young people ask their parents or other adults how you know if you love someone. For me, it was because I wanted to be with her. Not every minute of every day like the songs say. When we are apart, I need to get back to her. I hope you have someone that gives you that kind of security.

This is not sexual. That is why I say that sex is not the same as love. I do not like to use the term making love. That makes love a noun, not a verb. Love is something you do. As Paul says, “It is patient, it is kind, it never fails.”

I explain to those who say that they fell in love and have fallen out of love by adding I did not fall. I jumped in. I can leave if I do not want to continue to love. I have a choice to love or not. It is the same for you. Jump or stay where you are.

Love is a choice as the book title says. It is up to you. Like Doc Brown said at the end of the third installment of the Back to the Future Trilogy, “Your future isn’t set. Make it what you want it to be.”

©Copyright 2025 by Charles Kensinger