At the heart of 1 Corinthians 13, known as the love chapter, we find verse 7, the center verse, and maybe even the central verse.
The middle two phrases, “believeth all things, hopeth all things,” in some translations, means that you believe the best, and never quit hoping to see that come out in others. In our age of digital communication, with the wholesale loss of non-verbal cues, this verse has never been more needed.
I am part of a number of office teams working remotely. We are constantly sending Teams messages, emails, texts, and anything else there is to send. Everyone on our team is constantly making decisions, in the absence of body language, on how to interpret the message they just received. Was that a sarcastic, subtle jab or a compliment? An encouragement, or an all-out put down? To a large extent, the way in which we receive a comment will be based on previous interactions with that person and with others who remind us of them.
Enter verse 7. Love will choose, whenever reasonably possible, to believe the best and keep hoping. Believe the best about their intentions. Keep hoping that one day your relationship will be better. This does not mean that we do not call out inappropriate actions. However, in the middle of each interaction, we can still believe the best that is possible, given the realities each one involved is facing. May God fill our hearts with His love for each other, because Christ told us that by this test, all men would know that we are His disciples.
-Jeremy Sensenig