Do you practice love? My challenge to you is to make love your theme word for at least two short weeks. John wrote,

Dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth (1 John 3:18).

To help you and me put love into action, I have put together a two-week plan to learn to practice love, based on the definition of love we find in 1 Corinthians 13. You’ll find this plan on our website—christianworkingwoman.org—or we’ll be glad to mail one to you. It’s just a method you can use to keep you focused on growing in love.

For example, the plan includes reading 1 Corinthians 13 every day for two weeks and then focusing on one aspect of love each day. The first day’s focus is patience, because love is patient. But if you’re like me, patience does not come naturally for you. What can you do to learn to practice patience?

Here’s my suggestion for Day 1: Think about who or what makes you impatient and then pray for that person or situation specifically. Perhaps it’s a person you work with who just really tries your patience, and because of that, you’ve had some harsh words or at least harsh attitudes and thoughts about that person. But have you ever prayed specifically that God would help you show patience to this person?

When you do this, you begin to see that person the way God sees them, and you understand why they behave as they do. That, in turn, helps you be more patient with them as you look at them through God’s eyes. Praying specifically for a person or situation will unleash God’s power in you to learn to practice patience. And when you practice patience, you are practicing love! I promise—it works!