The country band, Shenandoah, sang a song back in 1993 called, “I want to be love like that.” A beautiful love song that depicts all the sweet phases of life that a love or relationship goes through.
From falling in love during high school to sacrficing wants for family throughout marriage to finally, still being fully devoted even after years of being seperated by death.
The chorus of the song goes like this:
I want to be loved like that
I want to be loved like that
A promise, you can’t take back
If you’re gonna love me
I want to be loved like that
We all have an innate longing for love. To be loved. To be shown love. To feel love, and to see love.
But as much as we desire love, do we honestly even really know what love it?
Do we fully recognize it?
Do we receive it even when it doesn’t look like the way we had pictured, or the way we love others?
Why do we fear it so often, and push it away at times?
So many complexities for such a small word. A small word that carries a magnitude of responsibilities, if you will, though.
I went on a journey of studying just what love meant, and while examining, “What love is” I came upon Webster’s defintion of love-
a feeling of strong or constant affection for a person.
Wikipedia explains is as,
Love emcompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleassure.
Recognizing love can be fully known or transparent, or it can be a little tricky at times. Especially when someome loves differently than we do.
In 1992, Gary Chapman wrote a book, “The Five Love Langages”. He explains in his book how each of us give and receive love by typically 1 of 5 different ways;
- Words of Affirmation
- Acts of Service
- Receiving Gifts
- Quality Time
- Physical Touch
His book helps in indentifying how one loves and then how to fulfill that love. Since we all look at love as to how we give it, we sometimes miss the love given by others, simply because we don’t quite recognize it for what it is.
There have been thousands or songs and books written about love, because it is so complex. And because it’s an emotion we all long for, but are scared to death at times to fully receive.
It’s no secret that most people push away or deny love from others because of fear.
- Fear that it won’t last.
- Fear that it will fade.
- Fear that it will grow cold.
- Fear that in the end, it will hurt…
And the deeper the love- well, yep, the deeper the hurt.
So in an attempt to protect our hearts from such hurt, we push love away. And more times than not, we end up pushing away those who love us the most as well.
I will be the first to admit that the closer you get to my heart, the harder I can push you away at times.
It’s not that I don’t long to be loved and fully known, but the slightest thought of losing such a deeply rooted and interwined part of my heart or soul is almost unfaithomable at times.
The harsh reality of it is everyone we love will leave us one day in one way or another. Whehter by choice, circumstanace, or death- it is just the inevitable.
But to think that we can somehow control the level or depth of hurt by attempting to control the level or depth of our love is ludicrest. It is simply insane!!
Knowing all of this and attempting to correct it isn’t always an easy task.
So instead of looking any further for what man had to say about love, I have started looking at what the olne created me says about it.
Psalms 103:8
The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
Proverbs 10:12
Hatred stirs up conflict,
but love covers over all wrongs.
John 15:17
This is my command: Love each other.
Romans 12:9
Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.
1 Corinthians 8:1
Now about food sacrificed to idols: We know that “We all possess knowledge.” But knowledge puffs up while love builds up.
Ephesians 4:2
Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
1 Peter 1:22
Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.
1 Peter 4:8
Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
And of course, there is …
1 Corinthians 13:4-7, 13:13
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.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
After some careful examining of my heart and my perception of love, things became clear to me.
While I love the song, “I want to be loved like that” and always will- it has a selfish view of love.
It’s more about what you can do for me, when clearly the Bible tells us to give selfless love that is slow to anger. One that covers all wrongs. To love sincerely and from the heart. To build up and not tear down. To be patient, kind, not envious, boastful, or proud. Not to be rude, self-seeking, or keep records of wrong doings. It tells me that I should protect, trust, hope, and preserve.
And in doing all of that, there should be no fear in love! None!
So if in my studying and searching I am understanding this all correctly, God first loved us, so that we may love others. So that we may love others. So. That. WE. May. LOVE. OTHERS! It doesn’t say that God first loved us, so others could love us as well.
Maybe that’s exactly where I am getting it all wrong. Instead of building up walls as high as the Great Wall of China with expectations of how other should love me, I must first accept the wholesome love of my father who set the perfect example of how to love and be loved.
- I must accept that He loves me even though I am flawed.
- I must accept that His love for me is not conditional.
- I must learn to accept that His love is all I need, and therefore, I am to turn my eyes away from my own selfish wants and desires, and turn them back to Him.
- I must accept that He will ensure that I am loved in just the way He intended for me to be all along.
Once I am able to fully accept this love, I can love others as He loves me.
So many times in life we get things all backwards from the way they are supposed to be. We wonder why life isn’t going smoothly. Why relationships are failing or falling apart. Why we feel hurt or injustices cause by others at times, to only go back to our owner’s manual to find out that if we would have put the parts back in the order that they were created to be in, the heart works perfectly, just as it was made to.
Love is an action or a choice, not just a word to say. Show those you love them in all you do. Let this corrective guidance that I needed to apply in my own life saturate your heart as well. ♥
We all could use some more love. But we have to be willing to to accept it wholly from our creature to correctly give it the way He has has instructed us to do so.