WHAT LOVE REALLY IS (AND IS NOT!)
Today marks one week before I become a wife. Needless to say, I’m anxious, excited, and doing a lot of thinking about love as I prepare vows and choose songs that make me catch the feels. Nicholas Sparks, Hallmark, and Cosmo all have extremely different portrayals and ideas of what love is. But what is it, really? And what is it not?
LOVE IS NOT A FEELING
Okay, okay. Let’s start out basic. I know this is one we’ve all heard before, but do we actually accept it? Truthfully, most of us don’t. If we did, divorce rates wouldn’t be so alarmingly high. That’s not to say couples don’t divorce for other reasons, because of course they do. “Falling out of love” is not the only reason, but it is probably one of the biggest reasons, if not the biggest. Steven J. Cole puts it perfectly,
“The world views love as an aimless, effortless state of ecstasy. You fall in love, kind of like falling off a surfboard. Once you’re in the water, you just let the current carry you along. If you have to work at it or give it any effort, you must not have the real thing.”
Infatuation is a feeling. Admiration is a feeling. Romance is a feeling. But if we say love is a feeling, then the vows we make on our wedding day such as, “for better or for worse” aren’t actually valid. If we really believe love is a feeling, those vows should be, “for better or for worse as long as I still feel infatuation with you, but chances are that will fade as life becomes routine and comfortable.”
LOVE IS AN ACTION
If love isn’t a feeling, it must be an action. Why? Who decided that? Well, God, actually. Romans 5:8 states,
“But God clearly shows and proves His own love for us, by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
This verse says that God shows and proves His love by the action of what Christ did. It does not say that God shows and proves His love by feeling a fondness for us, by admiring our appearances, qualities or personality, or by getting butterflies when He thinks of us. He showed love through an action, and not just any action, but the most literally self-sacrificial action. And that brings me to my next point…
LOVE IS SELF-SACRIFICIAL
Let’s look back at Romans 5:8 as our example of proof that love is an action. It also shows us what kind of action love is. Love is the literal sacrifice of self on behalf of another person. So often we get caught up in what our spouse or significant other does for us, or more often, what they don’t do for us. We get frustrated when our spouse doesn’t do the things that make us feel loved. That’s normal, and we really should strive to do things we know our spouse would love or appreciate, no matter how small. But last I checked, Jesus wasn’t dying on the cross, proving God’s love for us, while saying, “What’s in it for me?” Last I checked, Jesus wasn’t interested in what he was getting out of it. Jesus was interested in a) loving God the Father by submitting to His authority and b) loving us, by giving up comfort, status, and life itself so that we might have it someday. If your response to your failing marriage is, “it’s just not fulfilling anymore,” then you have completely lost touch of what the entire point of love is. Putting it as frank as possible, love isn’t about you.
LOVE IS NOT ABOUT YOU
If the ultimate expression of love is the sacrifice of self, then how is it that we have become so caught up in what love is supposed to do for us? “I love him because he makes me feel so special, he tells me every day how beautiful I am, and he goes out of his way to help me whenever I need a hand.” All those are things are still awesome, and I really hope you all have a man like that. On surface level, those things seem sweet and harmless, and they are, but if those are the reasons we actually love someone, that love is not the unconditional love that we are called to. That love is based on what the other person is doing for you. As demonstrated by the death and resurrection of Christ, love is what you do for another person. While there are a variety of different types of love described in the Bible, from erotic, sexual, passionate love, to the love between friends or family, the love that we should seek to love our spouses with is the kind of love that God has for us: Agape Love. In Romans 5:8, the verb for “love” is the Greek word for that agape love.
“But God clearly shows and proves His own [agape] for us, by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
We are shown how to demonstrate this love to each other in John 13 by what Jesus does and instructs us to do. He tells us to wash each other’s feet.
Quite literally, that’s what Jesus did in these verses for his disciples. His disciples, knowing he was the Son of God, were appalled that he would kneel to the ground and wash their disgusting feet. That doesn’t mean we have to wash our spouse’s feet literally (although, I think this would be an excellent experience for you!), but what Jesus is showing us is that if he, the Son of God, the one who should have been getting his feet washed, insisted on washing the feet of his friends, then that’s what we are to do to each other. How many of us have been insisting that our spouse wash our feet when this whole time, we’ve been instructed to kneel before them and wash theirs? How many of us insist on our own way and criticize our spouses when they don’t do what we want them to? Sorry, love, it’s not about you. (Pun intended).
LOVE IS NOT TOLERATION
Loving another person does not mean that you have to sacrifice truth in order to love them. In today’s society, we are brainwashed into the mentality that we need to support everyone’s own personal truth. But if someone is living in a way that is damaging to themselves or others, love doesn’t tolerate it in order to avoid offending them. You don’t tolerate your husband’s drinking problem because you love him, you become his rock and partner walking beside him, encouraging him to seek the help he needs because you love him and you want what is best for him. You don’t tolerate your wife’s bad attitude because you love her and don’t want to offend her, you gently and lovingly take her hand, listen to her frustrations, and help correct her attitude because you love her and want what’s best for her. Toleration of sin and an unhealthy lifestyle is not love. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Toleration of something that is knowingly damaging, no matter if that is physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual, is actually neglect.
LOVE IS FORGIVENESS
That being said, love always forgives. “But he cheated on me, I can’t possibly forgive that.” Hear me when I say, that toleration and forgiveness are not synonymous. Forgiving your spouse does not mean you are excusing the behavior. Forgiveness does not even mean staying in that marriage. Don’t misunderstand me, although the Bible does talk about infidelity being a tolerable reason for divorce, that still isn’t God’s plan or desire. God’s plan would be to restore the broken marriage and bring beauty from ashes. In this context, forgiveness would mean to release your spouse from the clutches of your bitterness, resentment, and retaliation. This doesn’t mean there aren’t still consequences for the actions made. Quite the contrary. But it does mean understanding that your spouse is equally as sinful as you are, and equally accounted for and purified by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. The truth is, if the perfect, Almighty God can forgive all of us in an instant if all we do is ask for it, we have no right to not forgive another equally human being.