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What is Love Really?
by Greg Baker Let me begin by saying right away that love is not an emotion. When it is merely an emotion or some warm fuzzy feeling that you have, you cheapen the true beauty of love. When love is an emotion, it is then dependent upon the other person as well as your current state of mind. Therefore, it would be a changeling, altering itself to fit the mood or the actions of the person we claim we love. It becomes an animal that purrs when stroked and hisses when cornered. If that is love, we have problems. Then there is the fact that we tend to fight the most with people we love, and the people we love also tend to hurt us the most. We get hurt and we fall out of love as a result. If you fell out of love, was your love ever true to begin with? Marriages fall apart because someone doesn't feel love anymore. Relationships become bankrupt because someone doesn't feel the love. This is a tragedy. SO WHAT IS LOVE There have been oodles and oodles of definitions written about love. Take the average quote book and you'll find pages and pages of definitions. Go to the local bookstore and you'll find a plethora of books on the subject. And you'll find good in all of them. But love has to be more than a feeling, more than a state of being that is dependent on outside stimuli. Love is more action than feeling. Feelings aren't wrong, but they are deceptive. This is why following your heart is such a dangerous philosophy. If everyone did that, we would have anarchy. Feelings flip-flop so rapidly sometimes that if we followed them, we would alternately love and murder the same person all within the space of a few minutes. So love is more of an action than a feeling. As a Christian we see this in the well known Biblical verse, "For God so loved the world that He had a warm and fuzzy feeling." Is that what it says? No, it says, "For God so loved the world that He gave..." God's love is manifested in an action, not a feeling. You love your children even when you are angry at them, don't you? So your love for your children is not predicated upon an emotion. Thus love is more of an action. LOVE IS STILL MORE THAN THAT It's still more than an action. Your ability to love is actually a reflection of your own heart, not the object of your love. Love comes from within, not earned. You love someone based on who you are, not on who they are. If someone admits that he doesn't love anymore, then I must question his heart. Either there is something wrong with him, or he never really loved to begin with. It's like that ol' Quaker who was looking at his enemy down the sites of his double barrel shotgun. He said, "Sir, I would not fain do thee harm in any way, nor would I wish thee ill, but sir, thou art standing where I am about to shoot." Your love should be kinda like that. People just ought to be standing where you are about to love. If a person must be worthy of your love, your love is shallow and small. If someone must earn your love, your love is probably not really love and it'll go as readily as it came. CONCLUSION This is but a few brief thoughts on love. But it is food for thought. Give your love a close look. Is it really love? More at: http://articles.christianbaptists.com Or http://www.fitlyspoken.org for books on communication and social skills in relationships! Specifically, our books 'Fitly Spoken' and 'Restoring a Fallen Christian'. For editing and ghostwriting services: http://www.affordablechristianediting.com Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |