What Is Love?

 

It's almost Valentine's Day! I was thinking about all the things that our culture makes love to be, especially on a holiday like this. Flowers and chocolates. A fancy date at a nice restaurant. A good looking, well dressed, young and vibrant couple. The stage of infatuation where you think about that other person all the time and have to try to think about anything else. The happily-ever-after that ends fairy tales. No shade on any of that - I'm happy whenever I get to experience moments like these -- but they don't really encompass most of what life is like.

And then I was thinking about how love is described in I Corinthians 13. Not focused on these highlight moments. Much harder. Not just for romantic love. It doesn't talk about how happy you will be and how much you will enjoy every moment and how Instagrammable all of it will be. It talks about being patient and kind; not arrogant, boastful, or rude; doesn't insist on its own way; and is not irritable or resentful. In other words, love is not only about me and how do I feel at this second and am I living my best life now. It's about, how am I treating this other person, the object of my love, and am I thinking of them and treating them at LEAST as well as I'm thinking about / treating myself?

I'm struck especially by these last verses that are in the picture - love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Who can meet that standard? Only Jesus is the one who fully embodied bearing every hard thing the world can throw your way and responding in the deepest, truest love the world has ever seen. Thanks be to God that we can all benefit not just from that beautiful example, but from the salvation offered in that love.

But the words in I Corinthians 13 also give me a good target to aim towards. I WANT to be the spouse, the parent, the friend who bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. I want my love to look more and more like this standard, and to care less and less about what Hallmark makes love to be. 

Sending love to all of you this Valentine's week!

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(A caveat I always try to give in this type of post -- this is not meant to heap shame on anyone who's gone through divorce, or to tell people who are in awful situations such as abuse that you need to stick it out through anything. That is NOT what I want people to get from this post. This is just meant to be some thoughts that advertisers and the Internet don't always throw our way about how we should approach our currently existing relationships.)