Love with…a long fuse
“Love is not easily angered,” Paul writes in that glorious thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians, and we—well, we nod piously and move on. Yet this small phrase, often recited at weddings and stitched into wall hangings, might be the fiercest flame in Paul’s tapestry of love. For those who dare to linger with it, it whispers an unsettling truth: love has a long fuse, and ours too often burns fast and hot.
Paul’s Greek is vivid here: ou paroxynetai. The word translated “easily angered” comes from paroxuno—a sudden provocation, a flare-up, a jolt of the heart that rushes to judgment or rage. It suggests a kind of inner combustion, the heat of a soul set on edge. And Paul, ever the realist and mystic, tells us: true love does not go there. Not easily. Not quickly. Maybe not at all.
This is not a call to apathy. It is not passivity cloaked in piety. No, love is deeply stirred by injustice and pierced by suffering. But love’s anger moves slowly, prayerfully, as a response rather than reaction. It does not explode. It burns slow and steady, warming rather than consuming.
In life anger often comes dressed as righteousness. We feel the sting of offense, the ache of betrayal, the itch of misunderstanding, and then react. But love, Paul says, is not reactive. It does not bite at every touch. It does not construct offense like a fortress. Love breathes. It listens longer than argue. It risks looking foolish in patience rather than triumphant in rage.
Love walks into our daily relationships, marriage, friendship, or ministry, with a soul that is unhurried having no reactions. What if we received others not with the heat of assumption but with the curiosity of love?
What if we slowed down our inner courtroom and allowed our anger to ask questions instead of judgments? This is not easy. If it was easy, Paul would not have needed to write it.
Perhaps the most disarming example of this love is God Himself. “The Lord is compassionate and gracious,” the psalmist declares, “slow to anger, abounding in love.” The Hebrew here, erek appayim, literally means “long of nostrils,” a poetic image of slow, deep breathing. God does not pant in rage. God inhales eternity and exhales mercy.
We are made in His image, and if love is our calling, then this same divine patience is not only a virtue to emulate, it is a grace to receive. We are not alone in this battle against quick tempers. The Spirit groans within us, stretching our capacity for peace. Christ, the unprovoked Lamb, stands with us in our triggered tantrums and whispers, “Let me love through you.” This is holy ground. Because love, when it is not easily angered, is not weak or blind. It is a furnace of restraint and mercy. It is the Spirit’s defiant whisper in a culture of outrage.
So here the invitation for you is, practice noticing.
Just notice.
When anger stirs, name it gently.
Do not judge it, do not feed it.
Let it become a signal, a summons to presence.
Breathe…wait…ask, “What would love do here?”
In your anger do not sin.
Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. [1]
[1] Ephesians 4:26-27 NIV
Jim Varsos