I’ve been thinking about love, and I think we have it all wrong…people say “I married my best friend”, “You should be friends first”, “He/she needs to like my favorite show”, “He/she MUST be a cat person, “He/she can’t dress like a hippie”, “She/he should have blue eyes”, etc. But all those things are just superficial…I mean think about it, how weird would it be to ACTUALLY marry your best friend? In my experience with couples who say they’ve married their best friend…either they were dating for years and BECAME best friends, or one of them did not consider the other a best friend when they got married. As unfortunate as it is, when people who are best friends hook up, it usually ends in destroying the friendship. Favorite shows change, clothing style changes, people can learn to like cats, and your significant other has no control over the color of eyes they were born with! There are just as many awful people with blue eyes as there are nice people. Can you see what I’m getting at? These things don’t guarantee lasting love, and they really aren’t good indicators of compatibility. Yes it can make it easier, in the beginning of a relationship, to WANT to get to know a person and love them if you have similar likes and dislikes, but when it comes down to love…love is unchanging.
1 Corinthians 13 says, “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 in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” It doesn’t say “love lasts as long as you agree on restaurants and movies and music.” It doesn’t say, “Love lasts as long as you agree on politics and religion” or “Love lasts as long as you have the same or similar dreams and goals in life.” No. It says love NEVER fails. It doesn’t end. It is constant. If you look at what this passage is saying, love doesn’t even have anything to do with feelings. Regardless of how you feel, or if you get along all the time, Love perseveres. It is a Noun, not a verb. Do you see what I mean? Love is a THING, it exists outside of you, or me, or anyone else, and it is more than an action. Love exists and operates and moves, without any action on our part.
I think what has happened to our society, is that people have forgotten what love is, and how to love. Of course it is easy to feel affection for someone who does nice things for you and likes the same things you like. It’s even easy to stuff anger and forgive a person if the majority of the time they are pleasant and you get along. But what love REALLY is, is affection without reason, sacrifice without reward, compassion regardless of situation or temperament, and preference regardless of similarity. Jesus was the ultimate example of love. He died on the cross to pay the price for sins he didn’t commit, for people who rejected him, and for criminals who didn’t deserve it, all because he CHOSE to. He had affection for the people of the world and wanted them to find forgiveness and healing. He gave them what they needed before they even realized they needed it, in the midst of them thinking they didn’t WANT it. THAT is love. God IS love. Can you see that? The reason love is a thing, is because it IS God. It emanates from him and cannot exist without him. It’s like the discussion between God and Scientists. When they say they can make man from nothing but dirt. God says, “ok, show me you can make man without me.” They go to pick up dirt and God says, “Oh no, you need to get your own dirt.” It’s the same idea. We have love in this world, because we have God. Infatuation and physical attraction are not love, they are infatuation and physical attraction! We have built in us a desire to be loved and appreciated, because we have a desire for Love, for GOD, built into us. But that same desire, with the selfishness that entered the world with sin, makes us want to grab at anything that will fill that void and make us FEEL loved and desired, no matter how temporary. Infatuation is mostly in our heads. We THINK the person we are infatuated with fits nicely into our dreams and imaginings, which are concocted entirely in our minds. Physical desire, I often think, is what King Solomon talks about when he says, “Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires” (or until it is right). My own mother used to say, “it is easier to never start, than to start and try to stop”…meaning people who never explore the realm of physical desires, rarely feel them until they are awakened at the right time, and people who don’t feel those desires, don’t try to satisfy them prematurely. People who try to satisfy physical desires prematurely, end up giving away intimate, precious pieces of themselves to people who won’t treasure them. They throw their pearls before swine.
So if Love is God, and Jesus is God, and we are called to be like Jesus, then we are called to love EVERYONE. And let’s face it, there is no way everyone likes your favorite TV show, or likes cats, or has blue eyes. Do you see where I’m going with this? Love is a CHOICE, and it doesn’t matter who the person is, what they’ve done or haven’t done, what they look like or don’t look like, what they like or don’t like….love is available to everyone, is freely given, and goes beyond those things to show preference and affection and compassion and concern and desire, regardless of whether or not it is deserved. Now, I’m not saying this means women in abusive relationships should stay there. I have read that women in these situations, when asked why they are still putting up with the abuse, say “Because I love him.” That is utter foolishness. It’s not love. Love despises evil and rejoices in good, and God definitely sees abuse as evil. What appears to me is actually happening in those situations, is the desire to be loved is warped and replaced by a need for attention of any kind. The Man has turned the woman into his instant gratification, and the woman has mistaken this as affection and begins to confuse abuse with punishment for something wrong. If a woman (or man, there ARE some very overpowering abusive women out there) in that situation TRULY loved the man, she would remove the object of the man’s physical addiction, she would remove herself, from his life. And, whether she could do that or not, she would continue to pray for him and reveal his sin to him. Loving people don’t let others continue in destructive sin, they point it out to them, they encourage them to confess it and give it up; they ceaselessly try to help others find love and purpose in their lives. Please remember I am no psychologist, I merely speak as I find, and this seems to me the most likely reason (or any variation of it) for abusive behavior of that kind.
Do you see what is happening here people? Our society is persistently shoving God out of the picture, and love is going with him. Do you really want a world without love? Can you imagine how dark and depressing and woeful that would be? Just people using each other for instant gratification, absolutely no random acts of kindness, no stranger willing to give you bus fare or shovel out your car, no one with any respect for personal property….we are seeing glimpses of this now (as we have since sin entered the equation), but can you honestly imagine a world where it is utterly and completely devoid of love: compassion, affection, redemption, relief, safety….etc? It’s unfathomable! Love is one way we know, God has not forsaken us. God is still here.
So if you think about it, love isn’t about all those things we think we like and want in a significant other. Those things just make it easier for us to love them, and it may be, that the person God has for you, could be the most unlovable person in the world, and God wants to use you to redeem them, to reintroduce them to God, to love, and to life. It may even mean there IS no specific person, and God is just calling you to love everyone you encounter equally. All we are called to do, is be like Jesus and obey God’s will and plan for our lives. This is kind of a difficult pill to swallow for anyone who has even a trace of selfishness in them (I’m thinking everyone), because it means dedicating your energy, attention, thought, heart, and talents towards someone else’s well being. In the process, of course, God takes care of YOUR well being, but it is hard to trust that when you feel you are in a comfortable place. For some reason people think their own plan for their life is going to be better than Gods, but that’s a whole other topic. The point, is that love is a choice, and it’s something that should be given to everyone. Since love is God and Jesus is God, and we are called to be more and more like Jesus, our spouses and other relationships are where we do the learning and growing to BECOME more like Jesus. God is using you to teach them, AND he is using THEM to teach YOU. Love is a lifestyle, a goal, a destination. Stop trying to find it in temporary, fleeting things.
Here are some quotes about Love that I think all say something a little bit different about what real love is.
We find rest in those we love, and we provide a resting place in ourselves for those who love us.
~ Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
Love one another and you will be happy. It's as simple and as difficult as that.
~Michael Leunig
Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.
~Peter Ustinov
We choose those we like; with those we love, we have no say in the matter.
~Mignon McLaughlin
The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but to hold hands.
~ Alexandra Penney
Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.
~Zora Neale Hurston
