All You Need Is Love

This month we begin looking at Commitment 4: We will commit to building a relationship of love. John Lennon said that “all you need is love”. The 70’s music duo Captain and Tennille won record of the year in 1975 for extolling the sentiment that “love will keep us together.” People’s idea of what love is—and can do—varies almost as much as our individual personalities.

We continue this month looking at Paul Tripp’s book “What Did You Expect?” These are primarily excerpts from his book. I strongly recommend reading his book to get the full benefit of his message. You can click on the book image to the right to purchase the book.

Where is the love?

There are many relationships that end in marriage that seem founded on love but really aren’t. There is a love drought that is causing marriages to dry up all around us. This love drought makes it impossible to have a marriage that is a lifelong relationship of unity and understanding. When it comes to love, we have two problems. First, there are many things we call love that simply do not rise to the level of what love is. Secondly, we lack a clear definition of what love is and what love does.

We are all rocked to sleep by regularity and routine. The things you see and experience over and over again tend to be the things that at some point you just stop noticing. We used to live very close to some train tracks. In the beginning it seemed like the train went by way too often. We would be wakened to the sound of the train blowing it’s horn. But over time, we hardly even noticed it. I’m reminded of a line in the movie “The Blues Brothers” when Elwood was staying at his brother’s run-down apartment next to the Chicago L-tracks. As a train roared by shaking the room, Elwood asked, “how often does the train go by”? Jake replied, “so often you don’t even notice.”

There are many couples in the same situation in their marriages. They think their marriage is okay. They would say they think they have a pretty normal marriage, but they think this because what should be abnormal to them became so regular that it became the new normal, and when it did, they quit seeing and hearing the abnormality. The problem for these couples is not that they are dissatisfied with their marriage. No, their problem is that they are all too satisfied with something that falls way short of what God designed a healthy marriage to be.

Many of us are way too skilled at living with plan B. We are all too good at painting over cracked walls, at working around broken plumbing, and at rigging dysfunctional wiring. We are all too good at getting along, making do, and hoping for the best. We talk ourselves into the belief that things will get better, that our problems aren’t really that big, and that we are better off than many couples. WE are too skilled at living with less and thinking it’s more. When we do this, we don’t look for help and we don’t work for change. We are passive when we should be active. We get up each day and make things work the best we can, but our best falls way short of God’s best.

So, what are the markers of a marriage that lacks a living, active love? Here are a few indicators of a love drought:

Disunity

Unity is not the product of sameness. God chooses to bring different people into intimate relationship with one another for His honor and their good. Unity results when love intersects with difference.  It is self-love that hates difference. It is self-love that makes you impatient. It is self-love that makes you want your own way, and convinces you that your way is the right way. Love celebrates the process of working together to become one. Love celebrates the grace of change that operates in the midst of the difficulty of difference. Love prizes unity and is willing to make sacrifices to achieve it. Love perseveres. Love stays active until what God has planned becomes your actual experience. Is the unity of your marriage growing?

Misunderstanding

It is self-love that makes you more committed to what you understand than to understand your spouse. It is self-love that keeps you from viewing your spouse’s words, perspectives, desires, and opinions as valuable. It is self-love that fills your brain so full of what you think and know that you have little room for your spouse’s thoughts. Love longs for the two of you to be on the same page. Love is willing to pay the daily sacrifice that it takes to reach real understanding. Love values the words of the other person. Love celebrates the process of understanding as much as the result. Do you live together in the joy of street-level understanding?

Separation

It is the daily choices to sweep our conflicts under the rug—to distance ourselves emotionally from each other—that creates a psuedo-peace in our marriages. We’re tired of fighting, arguing, and getting angry so we declare a truce. We give each other space. We are polite, and we function well together to get things done in the family that need to get done, but there is no real love. No active, living relationship. We are living parallel lives. Love will always find this kind of separation unacceptable and painful. Love thrives when the call is to build the relationship even stronger. Love is willing to make the painful sacrifices that togetherness demands. Love understands that cohabitation is a location, not a relational goal. Is your marriage more a picture of cohabitation than relationship?

Physical dysfunction

The primary reason couples are dissatisfied with their sexual relationship is not a lack of understanding of their bodies or “how” they make love together. No, what diverts and destroys physical sexuality and intimacy is a lack of love. If your relationship isn’t a daily act of love, there is little chance that sex will be. Love lives in awe of the holiness of the sexual relationship in marriage. Love finds joy in your comfort, satisfaction, and safety. Love will serve you and not use you. Love finds more excitement with giving than receiving. Love seduces you in a way that honors you and does not turn you into an object of autoerotic satisfaction. In the marriage bed, love loves. Is your sexual relationship a picture of patient, self-sacrificing love?

Conflict

Peace is a beautiful and sought-after thing for a person committed to a lifestyle of love. When you love someone, you are pained when things separate and divide you. When you love someone, real lasting peace is more valuable to you than being right or being in control. When you love someone, you are willing to forgive, serve, wait, listen, consider, examine yourself and your motives, and makepersonal sacrifices—all things that create and build peace in a relationship. In your marriage, do you resolve conflicts and do you work in whatever way you can to create peace?

What about you? Could there be a love drought in your marriage? Could it be that what you called love is not really love? Could it be that a brand-new commitment in love is what is needed for you to experience a brand-new beginning for your marriage?

Next month we continue looking at Commitment 4: We will commit to building a relationship of love.

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Paul David Tripp is the president of Paul Tripp Ministries, a nonprofit organization, whose mission statement is “Connecting the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life.” This mission leads Paul to weekly speaking engagements around the world. In addition to being a gifted communicator Paul is the Executive Director of the Center for Pastoral Life and Care in Fort Worth, Texas, and has taught at respected institutions worldwide. Paul has written twelve books on Christian Living that are read and distributed internationally, including Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands; War of Words; Broken Down House; and Crossway’s Whiter Than Snow. Get more information or purchase the book ”What Did You Expect?” He has been married for many years to Luella and they have four grown children. For more information and resources visit paultrippministries.org.