Love is…

It’s the eve of our anniversary…and so love is on my mind. I’m thinking of all the things the world tells us love is-in movies, songs, media of all sorts and even how we internalize those untruths as actual truth.

We are told love is this completing of someone or even ourselves. We are told it’s being consumed by someone having access to all their time, all their thoughts, all of their “all” in general. We are told it’s romantic and butterflies and that feeling of “in love” alllllllll the time. Songs often tell us this unhealthy concept of love that is nearly obsessive and not being able to live or breathe or function without someone’s love. We are also told of what we “deserve” and to find “the one” and to never settle. These messages and more are literally in our path of life all day every single day.

It took me nearly 50 years to recognize these lies. Years for me to realize God literally defined love in 1 Corinthians 13 for us. I guess I always thought it was just a nice little scripture.

And so…if we take what the world says and line it up with His truth, His definition of love–we will see that it’s extremely different! The world presents us with a self seeking love, a love to meet our so called needs and what we think we want or should have. It’s all about us, satisfying our desires. It’s motive is to receive. Think how many times we have complained or listened to our friends complain about our mate or spouse and what they are not doing. The ugly truth is, that motive-for them to comply with our wishes, is undoubtedly self seeking.

If we take captive these thoughts as His words tells us to do and make them obedient to His truth, we find nearly opposite ideas of love. No earthly person can complete us, that is solely reserved for our Creator and Savior. People can bring joy and love to our lives and much happiness–but they cannot complete us. It’s not His design.
Love is not consuming or obsessive–in fact it’s just the opposite. It’s liberating!! It’s freedom. God allows us free will, even to love Him-or not. He doesn’t demand. Scripture tells us God is love Himself and where the Spirit of the Lord is-there is freedom.

We know love can be romantic and if we have ever read Song of Solomon, it’s a beautiful illustration of love between husband and wife. However, that “in love”, butterfly feeling may come and go. That cannot be what we bank on to sustain love–not feelings. They are fleeting and change with circumstances. True love is a deliberate choice. Our love can be messy and painful, even hurt and ugly–because we are imperfect, we are flawed, we are sinners.

This matter of not settling and getting what we “deserve”. Guess what? We are all settling. Even whoever ends up with us!! No one is righteous, not one! We can search the world over, there was only One who was perfect and His name is Jesus. I’m not saying don’t exercise wisdom and discernment but what I am suggesting is that we acknowledge we are offering a fallible gift in ourselves.

What if we are too preoccupied with this notion of “the one”? It is my belief that if two people know the love of Christ and are committed to bestow that upon each other–just about anybody could be “the one”.

As we read 1 Corinthians 13, we see that all the characteristics of love, love as defined by God are things we can GIVE. Until we believe His love for us, unfortunately-we will always be trying to “get”; to fill that place in our hearts created for only Him. And once we believe we are truly, madly, deeply loved by the Creator of the Universe, the King of Kings, the Lover of our Soul…allllllllll those things we have been seeking are satisfied-in Him. ONLY in Him. Even the very best earthly love doesn’t come close to comparing to His unconditional, boundless love. Maybe that’s why the last line is love never fails. If we aren’t seeking and we have no expectations except to offer the love of Christ–love cannot fail. We must believe His love for us before we are able to give true love to anyone else. We cannot impart what we do not possess.

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