The world is in love with love — at least, with romantic love. Singers vocalize about it, novels thrive on it, advertisers sell by it. Whether it’s a cruise trip or a laundry detergent, romance moves the merchandise.
To our lasting sorrow, the TV and movie industries have taken the word love and changed its entire meaning. Soap operas are obsessed with it: it’s love in marriage, love outside of marriage, love in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening. But the tragedy of it all is that there is almost no love in anything — only lust.
True love undermined
The foundation stone of all human relationships has been undermined. We’ve been led to believe that love is little more than an obsession with sex. In movies and on TV, love almost always follows “good sex” rather than preceding it. Love is depicted by the media as being something almost totally beyond our control: one day it comes, another day it goes — so follow it wherever it leads. When love comes, get married; when it goes, get a divorce. We’ve been encouraged to build relationships on what might be called the “me” syndrome: when “me” is not happy, it’s time to look for satisfaction elsewhere, hoping to find the missing ingredient of excitement in another relationship.
It’s time to look at love more realistically, which is to say, the way God looks at it. Hollywood did not invent love, God did. He made us, and He also made romance and marriage.
By our inherent inclinations, men and women have a strong attraction toward each other. The energy which holds humanity together is sexual in nature. This sexual drive was instilled in humans (and animals) by God, and there is nothing unclean or distasteful about what God intended. Yet, as one writer has said, “In all the good things God has given us, the better and more powerful they are, the more dreadful and terrible the abuses.” Nowhere is this more true than in the matter of male-female relationships.
What love is
We need to recognize the difference between the genuine and the counterfeit in our relationships.
Genuine love involves a deep commitment, not simply emotional feelings. To be sure, feeling is involved; but over the years, love is a matter of the will as well as the emotions. We will to love or we will not to love. That is why God can command us to love our neighbors and even our enemies. We’re capable of doing both by an act of the will. When we fail to love someone, it’s because we choose not to do so.
To be sure, we do not love our marriage partners in the same way that we do our neighbor. But an underlying sense of commitment is involved in all these relationships. Consider what God says about love, in all its forms: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, 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” (I Cor. 13:4-7).
Only when we are willing to give are we truly ready to love. True love is not spelled s-e-x, it is spelled g-i-v-e. Love is not simply a physical attraction to a person with a lovely form or face. It is not something one discards when someone more attractive comes along, nor is it something one turns off when the going gets tough. It’s not a fleeting passion, but a deliberate choice — a commitment of the will that survives the storms and trials of life.
Romance is fine, but…
It takes a lot more than sexual attraction or romance to make a marriage work. Marriage not only involves romance and sex, it also includes sickness, thumb sucking, diaper rash, spilled milk, naughty children, sleepless nights, allergies, car pools, unpaid bills, bathtub rings and laundry.
Sooner or later, romantic feelings are going to fluctuate. If that is all the underpinning your marriage has, it is bound to collapse. Volitional love, the kind that is a product of the will, is much deeper than sexual attraction or romantic feelings. It is a relationship which grows out of knowing a person, having an intense awareness of his or her needs, and being willing to give unselfishly to fill those needs — sometimes at the cost of satisfaction to self, but many times finding contentment in the giving.
If you are not married, how can you know the difference between romantic feelings and love? Sometimes it’s difficult to tell, since they can exist together. So what can you do? Stall for time until you are absolutely sure!
Try to imagine the dazzling physical appearance or personality when it grows older. Good looks fade and give way to the lines and wrinkles of advancing years. A vivacious personality can lose its spark from illness and overwork. Will you still love then? Real love doesn’t fade with time, it deepens.
Romantic attraction, as exciting as it is, can be disastrous because it makes room for our emotions to rule our heads. Mr. Charming can do no wrong; his bad habits and bothersome traits are overlooked, minimized, and excused. But no one can live with another person 24 hours a day, seven days a week and not be vexed by that person’s faults. This is where volitional love comes into play. If we choose not to exercise it, marrying any person will be a disaster.
Love must be nurtured
Romantic love is a rightful part of our love for our partners. Deliberately letting that aspect of our relationship die is also endangering to our marriage. If a husband works seven days a week with little or no time for romantic activity, romantic love will die. If a wife is so completely absorbed in her children that she neglects her husband, love will shrivel.
There will be times, inevitably, when the immediate circumstances require a change of emphasis for the moment: if a child is sick, or the husband loses his job, or the house burns down, then the emergency demands that ordinary priorities be laid aside until the crisis passes. But then the one-flesh unity must be re-established and reinforced. This is ordained of God.
“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” Gen. 2:24 NIV. But notice that there is a progression here. Leave father and mother to form anew family unit; cleave to one another in faithfulness and love, the essence of the relationship; become one flesh, the result of marriage, a true unity, sharing all things together — a blessing made possible by God, and carried out with Him!
Love is a beautiful thing! It is a fundamental aspect of the character of God. Because it is so important, it needs to be guarded and protected against every effort to cheapen it. And it needs to be well understood that we might practice true love in our lives.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One