What is Love?

“Love” is such a common word we hear and use isn’t it?

The dictionary definition of “love is:

1. (noun) an intense feeling of deep affection.

2. (noun) a great interest and pleasure in something.

3. (verb) feel a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone

 

We use it a lot when expressing our appreciation or enjoyment of something.

“I LOVE the Chalupas from TacoBell!”

“I LOVE the way you did your hair”

“I LOVE that shirt”

…..you get it.

 

Basically, “love” according to this definition is a feeling, right? An intense feeling toward something.

Now, let’s just throw this out there..if a man and a woman are dating, and the man swears at, belittles, and regularly insults the woman, but states that he loves her, then according to this definition, we can’t exactly say whether he does or not. Because love is just a feeling, and we can’t claim to know someone else’s feelings regardless of whether it shows through their actions or not. 

So, this woman continues to allow that man to treat her that way because she believes that he loves her and doesn’t want to mess that up.

That doesn’t sound good right? Obviously, any other person would say that the man doesn’t love her because his actions prove otherwise. Also, the woman isn’t truly showing love by enabling the man to treat her with such wrong actions, right? She may be reacting out of fear, being used to the relationship and not wanting to try over, or maybe he does offer some positive things to her life that she doesn’t want to lose. So, in a case like this, the actions of both don’t indicate love, but the supposed feelings do.

Well, let’s think about another, more regular occurrence, based on actions and feelings not lining up…

Let’s say a couple got married 1 year ago, and they’ve been getting into more fights since they started living together. We’ll bring in a specific argument, and you decide whether the actions are loving or not.

The husband has been taking on extra work and stressing out lately because they are planning to have a child and he wants to be able to provide. Because of this, he has been distant lately, trying to figure things out. He hasn’t been affectionate, spends most of his free time in front of the tv, and they haven’t gone on a date in a couple of months. The wife takes her husband’s distance as him not caring about her or wanting to spend time with her, so she gets angry and resentful. Her husband comes home one day and tries to speak with her about her day, but because she has been holding in all of her pain, she just says “fine” in an angry tone and then walks away into the other room. Her husband is left wondering what he did wrong, which adds to the stress he already has, and is upset because he doesn’t want his wife to hurt, but she won’t speak to him.

In this situation, we see some unloving actions all throughout right? And both the husband and wife feeling unloved as well. But isn’t this a situation we may even go through ourselves often? The man/woman you’re with upsets you deeply with their actions and you don’t FEEL love towards them for the moment. You feel angry, upset, disappointed, maybe even unloved yourself. You don’t feel butterflies, happiness and lovey-dovey during those moments.

If these types of actions and feelings continue for too long, that is usually where people start to say “I don’t think I am in love with them anymore”, I think we need to end things. “In love” is just yet another way of saying “have deep feelings for”.

So, many relationships are based on feelings for each other, and once those feelings are gone and aren’t seeming to change anytime soon, that is when people decide to call it off. And some may say they “love” someone, but their actions clearly prove otherwise. Therefore, can we maybe consider that this popular definition of love being a feeling, doesn’t have any real value? It doesn’t benefit anyone or even mean anything most of the time.

Many of us say “words don’t mean anything, I need to see actions”. And rightfully so.

Feelings come and go, CONSTANTLY. We are all imperfect human beings who can’t be what everyone wants us to be. Therefore, we will upset people that we care deeply for. We won’t always get along with people. That’s just how it is. That doesn’t mean you care about those people any less, it just means you’re human.

Now, let’s look at the Bible’s meaning of love for a second:

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

 

Personally, I like this definition a lot better. It gives us something to work towards. Something that is actually practical for our lives and relationships.

See, love isn’t just accepting people’s wrong doing towards us, or pushing through toxic relationships, that is not healthy for anyone and is a whole other situation that needs to be handled.

Love is choosing to show these qualities even during times when we don’t feel like it. When it is the hardest to do so. Anyone can be kind when someone else is being kind. Anyone can be patient when there’s nothing testing your patience. Anyone can exercise hope, when there’s much to be hopeful for. Anyone can persevere when things are going wonderfully. But love is choosing to do those things even when we DON’T feel like it. Not withholding love when we’re sad, because we chose to love this person and they are God’s creation. Withholding our love because of emotions is (I’m going to be blunt here) selfish.

I am not going to sit here and pretend I haven’t done this myself. I most definitely have reacted more times than I would like to admit based on my feelings. And have withdrawn and been unloving. We all do it. But the problem comes when we think we are entitled to behaving this way and even use our feelings as a way to justify those behaviors.

Not being “in love” with someone anymore means nothing. Because you can easily fall back “in love” again in a few hours. So, the more that we study this biblical definition of love and make the choice to do those things even when we’re at our worst, the closer we are getting to Christ, and the stronger our relationships will be. I am not saying it is going to be easy in the slightest. In fact, you’re going to mess up at times, and you may feel like giving up often. But, it is beyond worth it. When you’re having a hard time, bring it to God, let Him give you the strength to keep showing love.

Again, there is much more involved when it comes to abusive and toxic relationships, and you may need to go speak with someone to help you more in depth, but this goes for any normally healthy friendships and relationships that may be going through hard times. Or if you’re just confused about what love actually is, or if it has been losing it’s meaning to you lately, I hope that this can help you a bit.

 

I hope you enjoyed reading this post. If you have any questions or would like to comment on it, I’d love to hear your thoughts! Don’t forget to subscribe to be updated on future posts.

 

Young Christian with No Friends?

If you clicked on this post because of the title, then I will tell you right now, I know the feeling.

I’ve gone from having a ton of friends, spending all my free time with other people throughout my high school years, to having barely anyone (aside from my now husband and a couple of long time friends) that I can call an actual friend.

How did it happen? Well, aside from the normal, people moving away for college and heading in different directions, it was my new faith that really changed everything for me.

When I gave my life to Christ and decided to follow Him, many people I once hung around all the time started to treat me differently. They didn’t take very well to my new lifestyle.

Things that I used to think were okay to do, no longer were in my eyes, which made it hard to be around. I wasn’t comfortable being who I was anymore.

It was like a switch turned in me and my values completely changed. I found myself unable to participate in any conversations that involved gossip, mocking, anything just inappropriate and ungodly. I found it more and more difficult to be around it. So, I slowly distanced myself and started to pray that God would take away anything that wasn’t good for me anymore and put into my life people who are like-minded and wanted the same kind of relationship with Him that I did.

****I just want to throw in here that I am not saying I have any hatred towards anyone from my past, I have actually come to the point that I can be grateful for all of the good times we did have! Nor am I trying to make this sound overly judge-y or holier-than-thou, but as a Christian, these things became extremely important to me, so it’s just how it went down. It is perfectly okay and healthy to choose not to surround yourself with certain people anymore for various reasons. That’s just how it goes sometimes. There are people who are only meant to be in your life for a season, and then there’s those that are meant to be for life. And that’s perfectly fine!

I went through a long season of confusion and loneliness. This was the first time I had no one other than God to go to. And looking back on it now, I think that is exactly how He wanted it.

Without all of the distractions and emotions involved with being around people who I couldn’t share my love of the Lord with, I was able to finally get to know Him and establish a stronger relationship with Him. It was an extremely difficult time, but also undeniably beautiful.

After a while though, my flesh started to take over and I was getting impatient. I took a walk down the pity trail and got consumed with self-doubt.

All I could think of was how I could get new friendships, ones that were perfect for me. And when it wasn’t happening, I became discouraged and depressed and unknowingly put these walls up that were actually pushing away any chances at making true friendships.

Why did this happen? Pride. Selfishness. Thinking of me, myself and I. The Enemy loves to kick us when we’re down. He loves coming to us in our vulnerable moments. He knew that this was unfamiliar territory for me, being alone. And he used it to make matters even worse. I was blinded to this for the longest time. Letting those same thoughts replay in my head over and over, I slowly became hardened towards people in general.

I was too focused on FINDING friends that I lost sight of trying to BE one.

But how could I possibly say that I deserved something from others, when I wasn’t doing the same back?

How could I expect to get Godly friends in my life, when I couldn’t be one myself? 

And I feel like maybe a lot of us go through that transition. When we lose everyone we thought were close to us and start to see the truth, everything changes. And when we experience times of loneliness or hardship, it can be very easy to become bitter and angry with our circumstances. Many times, that stems from selfishness or impatience.

But if what I’ve gone through means anything, then maybe if we’re putting ourselves in places to meet other Christians, and making attempts to befriend others, and are still feeling extremely lonely, thinking we’ll never make any friends, we might need to take a look at our own hearts. Maybe God has something to show us that we haven’t recognized about ourselves.

Maybe there is still some healing needed to be done. 

God wants us to have friendships. For us to build each other up, hold each other accountable, and share His love with one another. He never intended for us to be isolated. Maybe for a time, but not forever. The way to glorify Him is when others see Him through us. When we spread the gospel to others. When we show others the love of Christ. We can’t do that by being away from people. So, if it’s something He wants for us, then He will make a way for it to happen.

So, remember that there is a reason for this season in your life right now. As hard as it may be to understand it, God is pruning your life. He is taking away those things and people that are not growing you anymore and making space for those that will. It is our job to keep our hearts and minds open to what He is doing.

I would really say, that instead of allowing this season to make you bitter (I know, a lot easier said than done), try to remember that this is the perfect time to start strengthening your one on one relationship with the Lord. Once you do have those friends, there will be more times that you may need to give up your free time for others, you will have other responsibilities.

So, take this alone time you have now to really embrace God and learn about Him as much as you can. Let Him teach you about the kind of friend we need to be. Ask Him to show you your gifts and strengths so you can use them for others down the road. Learn new things. Try new things. Explore. Get to know yourself better.

Think about it this way. This is how things are right now. And we can choose to either resent it, harbor anger in our hearts and have a scowl on our face, or we can choose to find the many positives in it, grow deeply in our faith and as a person and then when the time comes for new friendships, we will be able to give our very best and have a grateful heart.

 

I hope you enjoyed reading this post. If you have any comments or questions, I’d love to hear your thoughts! Subscribe for updates on new posts!