Welcome to a brand-new series on Born to be a Butterfly! 🦋 

Today we begin a deep dive into one of the most well-known and often-quoted scriptures in the Bible: 1 Corinthians 13. But instead of just reading it—we’re going to live it, one attribute of love at a time.

In this first episode, we’re focusing on the very first characteristic listed: Love is patient.

What if God started with patience because it’s the foundation of all spiritual growth? What if every season of waiting is actually God’s loving invitation to grow deeper roots in Him?

Whether you’re feeling stuck in a wilderness season or just struggling to trust God’s timing, this episode is for you.

If today’s message spoke to you, please share it with a friend and follow Born to be a Butterfly so you never miss an episode. 

📖 Ready to dive deeper into healing and transformation? Get my book, From Broken to Butterfly, on Amazon today! 

📩 If you have any questions or want to connect, send me a DM on Instagram at Born To Be A Butterfly or email me at ninapajonas@gmail.com. I love hearing from you! 

Remember, the Lord can turn your wounds into wings—you were Born to be a Butterfly! 🦋

Born to be a Butterfly © 2025 Nina Pajonas All rights reserved. The content of this podcast is for informational and inspirational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. For the full disclaimer, visit ⁠ninapajonas.com.

Hello, my sister in Christ.

I am so excited to announce that today I'm going to start a series.

We're going to break down 1 Corinthians 13,

the famous love verse in the Bible,

and we're going to explore what it really means,

one attribute at a time.

I'm going to start by reading 1 Corinthians 13,

verses 4 through 7.

NIV Love is patient.

Love is kind.

It does not envy.

It does not boast.

It is not proud.

It does not dishonor others.

It is not self seeking.

It is not easily angered.

It keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects,

always trusts,

always hopes,

always perseveres.

Today we're talking about the very first thing that love is.

Love is patient.

One of the things I've realized is that Paul the Apostle begins this list with love is patient for a reason.

It's the first thing we need to learn when we're walking with the Lord.

It's very easy to get frustrated on our walks of faith.

We don't get to choose the length of our seasons.

We don't get to choose the timing of the harvest.

We don't get to choose the conditions of the soil.

However,

what we do get to choose is our level of obedience.

And obedience only happens in the presence of patience.

Welcome to Born to Be a Butterfly,

where we embrace healing and growth in Christ so we can experience true transformation.

My name is Nina Pajones, and I pray that today's message ministers to you.

I believe the Lord allows things to test our patience,

to train us to strengthen our character,

to see if we'll still walk with him when it doesn't feel good,

to see if we'll stay committed, when it doesn't make sense,

to see if we'll love people even when they frustrate us.

Patience is at the core of all of that.

When you really begin to walk in your purpose,

it's easy to start expecting momentum.

It's easy to think, okay, I'm doing what you told me to do, God.

So why isn't this growing?

Why is this taking so long?

Sometimes growth isn't seen because God is deepening your roots in his soil so that the storms of life don't uproot you.

Sometimes the most powerful transformation is invisible to the outside world.

But you must understand that it's done intentionally by the One who created the world.

He won't reveal you until you're ready.

And if you're walking with the Lord,

you've got to be okay with that.

Waiting isn't glamorous.

It will cost you.

It will cost you your pride.

It will cost you your comfort.

It will cost you your timeline.

It will cost you your desire to be understood,

seen and celebrated.

Waiting will reveal if you are more concerned about what you want than you are about Christ.

If we idolize anything or anyone over the Lord, he is not going to be happy.

He is on the throne.

He is the maker of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things.

If you are worshiping a creation or a desired situation over him,

that is a problem.

Anything you put above the one who is seated above is going to cause cracks in the foundations of your faith.

He has to make sure that your heart is ready for what you're called to handle.

From the heavenly realms comes spiritual authority.

He has a divine assignment for your life.

There are things that you are called to do, things that you were created to do.

But if your priorities are not in the right place,

if you are putting things or people above our high priest in heaven, you're going to have issues.

You will fall into traps laid out by the Evil One and his minions.

And I'm telling you right now,

God is not going to allow that.

He is going to try to protect you from them and yourself.

So you can't look at waiting as a punishment.

And you must be patient as you're being pruned.

Pruning is painful,

but it is purposeful.

It's productive.

God prunes those he loves.

He cuts back what isn't producing fruit or what's producing the wrong kind of fruit.

And the branches that are fruitful,

he prunes those too,

so that they'll bear even more.

So if you feel like things are being cut away in your life,

relationships, opportunities,

comfort,

or even parts of your identity,

know this.

You're not being punished.

You're being prepared.

Patience is about trust.

It's about believing that God's timing is better than your timeline.

When we try to rush things,

we ruin things.

When we try to force doors open,

we walk into rooms we're not ready to be in.

If you wait,

you will receive the extraordinary.

If you rush,

you will settle for the ordinary.

Because it won't be what God has planned for you.

It'll be what your hands grabbed onto.

When we are not getting the desires of our heart,

it means that the desires of our heart are not in alignment with the will of God.

When we are walking in the will of God,

we let him do the work in us that he needs to do so that we can do the works that he prepared in advance for us to do.

In time,

the seeds that we plant with our souls will bear fruit.

There will be a harvest,

and the harvest will come from heaven.

So what does it mean when the Bible says love is patient?

It means real love waits.

It waits on God's timing.

It waits for the Spirit to move.

It doesn't force,

it doesn't manipulate.

It doesn't pressure.

It doesn't control.

Patience is a fruit of the spirit because it doesn't come naturally to us.

It's something God grows within us as we grow more like Him.

You're not a standalone tree eating your own fruit.

You are called to bear fruit that others will eat.

And that fruit has to be good.

It has to be pure. It has to be holy.

But if you suppress the Holy Spirit, your fruit will be bitter.

If you drink polluted water from this world and refuse the living water of Christ,

don't ask God why. You aren't walking in your calling.

You're uprooting yourself every time you resist Him.

You keep asking,

why am I still waiting?

But if you're not learning lessons from the Lord,

you're not living for the Lord.

He has told you who to stop spending time with,

but you keep choosing them over Him.

The Holy Spirit has revealed how you are choosing the ways of the world instead of the One who created the world.

But you haven't stopped doing it.

You must let the Lord do His work in you,

or you will never become who he created you to be.

Sisters,

hear me when I say I'm not just speaking this to you. I am speaking this over myself.

I have struggled in seasons where I felt like I was ready, but I wasn't.

Where I was telling God, please give it to me, I'm ready.

I've done the hard work,

and he's telling me, no,

you're not ready.

There's more work to be done.

And I love you too much to lie to you.

Our faith is built in seasons of waiting.

Our trust in the Lord is built in seasons of waiting.

Our obedience is built in seasons of waiting.

You wonder what's happening.

But the God that created you and me and everything under the heavens,

he's not wondering.

He knows exactly what he's doing.

He knows exactly what you need to become who he created you to be.

We all need seasons of waiting. We all need to be in the wilderness with the Lord so that we can build up our faith,

so we can strengthen our spiritual muscles for the seasons ahead where we're going to need to be stronger so that we could deliver the good news of the gospel.

There are going to be territories or people that we go to that we're sent to.

They're going to need to see more of Christ in us to believe us.

It is by the word of our testimony, in the blood of the Lamb,

that we conquered the enemy. But how great is our testimony if we don't let God do a great work in us?

This is all part of the process,

Sister. It is painful. It is pruning. It is waiting. It is obedience. It is a lot of things.

Patience.

It is for so many things.

But all of those things are essential.

On our walk with the Lord.

He's giving us tools to equip us to do the work he planned in advance for us to do before the foundations of the earth. The Lord had a plan for your life.

Do you understand that?

I mean, do you really grasp the seriousness of that?

There are lives that we're called to speak into.

There are people we are called to walk alongside of.

There are things that we are called to do. And the Lord our God decided on all of it before he even created the world in which we live.

That's how purposeful. That's how intentional our Lord and our Savior is. That is how intentional and purposeful our Heavenly Father is.

That is how purposeful and intentional the Holy Spirit is.

The three in one.

They created the idea of us.

Our personalities, our traits, our quirks, our gifts,

everything. Our calling, our identity in Him. They created it in such a way as to perfectly align with other assignments that they've given their other children so that we all work together like a people puzzle.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, our lives are like pieces of a puzzle. There they connect. We all connect for the good and the glory of God in this enormous tapestry of life that he weaves throughout generations, throughout centuries.

All across the nations, all across the world. All of us, we're connected.

We are all the body of Christ.

So what we do affects one another.

And what we don't do affects one another.

We must learn the lessons that the Lord wants us to learn so that we can lead with love,

so that we can shine his light.

Because it is our light in the darkness of this broken world that leads people to Jesus.

They might not find him otherwise.

You can wander in the wilderness like the Israelites,

or you can live in his will for your life and reach the promised land.

You're not waiting because he's forgotten you.

You're waiting because the Lord loves you and he will never take you somewhere that you're not ready to go.

I'll be referencing Psalms 27, verses 13 through 14.

NIV I remain confident of this.

I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord.

Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

And now I'm going to ask you a few questions and I would really recommend that you reflect on these deeply.

And if you're having trouble answering them,

just bring it to the Lord and have him reveal what you might be struggling to see.

One where in your life are you struggling to be patient?

What area of your life frustrates you the most and why is it frustrating you?

Is it because it's taking too long to happen?

Is it because it doesn't look like what you thought it would?

Ask yourself those questions and bring them to the Lord.

And number two,

what would it look like to trust God's timing in that situation instead of trying to control it?

And also,

you might want to think about this.

Is there any area of your life where you've mistaken delay for denial?

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father,

we thank you for being patient with us.

We thank you that your love isn't rushed and it isn't conditional.

Teach us to wait well.

Teach us to surrender our timelines,

our expectations and our need to be in control.

We want to love like you do,

with patience and with grace.

It is in the most wonderful,

beautiful and mighty name of Jesus that we pray.

Amen.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

If this episode blessed you,

would you do me a favor and share it with a friend who's in a waiting season?

If you'd like to dive even deeper into how God's love,

healing and timing transformed me,

you can get my book From Broken to Butterfly on Amazon.

If you have any questions or want to connect,

Send me a DM on Instagram, Born to be a Butterfly, or you can email me at ninapajonas@gmail.com. Stay tuned for the next episode in our How to Love like the Lord series.

We'll talk about how love is kind until next time.

Remember,

the Lord can turn your wounds into wings.

You were born to be a butterfly.