Walk in Love

Walk in Love

A nurse educator described her mentor: 'She had the most efficient workflow I had ever seen. But that wasn't what made her extraordinary. What made her extraordinary was that she walked in love. Every patient was a full person to her, not a case. Every family member was treated with the same dignity as the patient. She prayed with anyone who asked. She wept with families who were losing someone.' The educator paused: 'I can teach technique. I cannot teach what she had. What she had was Ephesians 5:2. She had learned to walk in love. And she made me want to learn it too.'

Paul's instruction to 'walk in the way of love' places love not as a feeling to cultivate but a direction to travel. The Greek peripateo (walk) is Paul's characteristic word for the whole manner of daily life — how you move through each day. Love, in this context, is defined by Christ's self-giving: 'just as Christ loved us and gave himself up.' The model for Christian love is not romantic affection or warm feeling but sacrificial self-giving for the sake of the beloved. To walk in this love is to move through each day oriented toward the good of others in the same way that Christ moved toward the good of humanity at the cost of everything. It changes every interaction — every conversation, every errand, every encounter.