8 Love Lessons, Part 1

Growing up I (Mike) had all kinds of confusion about the crazy little thing called love. In the fifth grade, I got my first crush on Kathy. She had that Laura Ingles Wilder thing going, with the braided pigtails. So cute! I chased her at recess. I threw rocks at her. All the ways you show affection in the fifth grade.By high school my dating techniques changed—thankfully! I started to date Debbie. I remember sitting with her in a movie theater. My heart would pound because I wanted to hold her hand so badly! But I was shy. I’d go into this countdown mode. Ten, nine, eight… ten, nine…It took me forever to grab her hand. But when I did,

I thought, This is love.

On our wedding day, Debbie walked down the aisle.

I thought, This is love.

Three years later I watched that girl go through 36 hours of labor to bring our first child into the world. And that’s when I knew what love is.

A lot of people say love is blind. We think it’s just the opposite. Love sees things no one else sees. It sees both the potential and the flaws in your spouse. But if you have God’s love, you love in spite of them.

Jesus said in essence, “You want to know what life is about? Let me boil it down to two simple things: Love God; love people.” That’s what marriage is about.

In fact, the apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 14: “Let love be your highest goal.” He writes again in Galatians 5:6, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” If that’s the only thing that matters, then we want to spend our life learning to love God and each other.

There are several kinds of love. There’s the generic brand X, based on feelings, and then there’s this extraordinary love, the kind God has for us that’s fueled by his supernatural power. The reason so many of us struggle with love is that we’re not plugged into the right power source.

Paul tells us how to get this love in Galatians 5:22: “When the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love …” And Peter writes in 2 Peter 1:3, “As we know Jesus better, his divine power gives us everything we need for living a godly life.” Love is a byproduct of our intimacy with God. The same supernatural power that blew a rock off a tomb and gave life to a dead man is in us, guiding, stretching, and prompting us to do the right thing, convicting us when we do the wrong thing.

As we intentionally imitate Jesus throughout our day, there’s this unexplainable surge of power and energy that enables us to love in ways we’re incapable of on our own.

Love lesson: If you fall in love with God, really fall in love with God, you’ll notice a difference in your love toward your spouse.

We each study and personalize the Bible and memorize specific verses to continually renew our minds to God’s power and character. If we fail to do that, our culture and society will shape our minds in the opposite direction.

Our culture equates love with the emotional, feeling part. One of the songs we grew up with suggests, “You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feeling.” As though we misplaced it, or as if it’s an emotion that involuntarily comes and goes.

Love, according to God, is a decision. It’s an act of the will more than it’s an act of a hormone.

We decide to love our spouse, even when we don’t feel like it.

When Mike does something to annoy or frustrate me (Debbie), I know that the Holy Spirit can hold my tongue and I can choose to say the right thing. But sometimes, it’s easier to say, God, I’m mad right now. I don’t want to hear from you. I know it may wreck my marriage. I know I can never take it back, but I’m going to say it anyway. Because I’ll feel so much better. But you know, I don’t feel better. That’s because I chose not to love.

Love lesson: When you don’t feel those loving feelings, behave as though you do. AA has a slogan, “Fake it till you make it.” We’re not saying to be inauthentic. The “faking-it” part is saying, I’m going to decide to do the right thing. When we determine to treat our spouse with love—even when we don’t feel like it—those feelings eventually catch up with our right behavior.

Am I approachable? Am I intimidating or testy? Does my tone or body language suggest that I’m superior?

Sometimes we react in ways that shut down communication. One Saturday morning a few weeks ago, Mike was putting in an underground dog fence. I (Debbie) was frustrated because it was a slow process, and he was frustrated that I was frustrated that it was a slow process. Every time we’d mention it, it became a hot topic. Finally, we got into a spat. Mike raised his voice, and I didn’t speak to him the rest of the night. We weren’t exactly approachable.

That Sunday we heard a sermon on gentleness. We came home, hugged, and apologized. We constantly pray to be more like Jesus—who was so approachable.

Love lesson: Approachability is when you have the right tone, the right body language, and the right timing.

In 1 John 4:18 the apostle John writes, “Perfect love casts out fear.” It’s approachable.

If we’re struggling with love, sometimes it’s because we’re moving too fast. We’ve got places to go, things to do. But the faster we move, the less time we have even to notice our spouse let alone love him or her.

If love is the “highest goal,” if it’s “the only thing that counts,” we have to slow down.

When our kids got to be school-age, we were constantly running them to their practices and lessons. Our relationship was disappearing. So we made a commitment to have breakfast together every Monday morning. That was our time to rekindle our love for each other—plus it’s a cheap date! We’ve done that now for more than 10 years.

Too often we’re moving so fast that we’re exhausted and running on fumes.

One of the reasons Jesus loved so supremely is that he unplugged and had regular times of rest and replenishment. He’d find a solitary place for rest, so he could pursue the highest goal of love with all his energy.

Love lesson: Sometimes the most loving thing we can do is, like Jesus, rest and replenish our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual tank. Go to bed earlier. Get healthier. Put breaks in your schedule. Build in personal alone time and time with the church community to refill your empty spiritual tank. It takes energy to love deeply.

Next month we will look at the last 4 love lessons.

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Copyright ©2004 by the author or Christianity Today International/Marriage Partnership magazine.