By Mark Skalberg & DiAnna Steele
Do you remember your first encounter with romantic love? I {Mark} was a 5th grader. Margaret passed me a note simply stating, “Suzie likes you, do you like her, circle yes or no.” I thought for a moment then circled “yes”. We went togetherfor three glorious weeks, though I wasn’t sure where we went other than walking along the fence at recess.
Soon I received another note telling me Suzie no longer liked me and she wanted her St. Christopher pendant back. I was as crushed as a 5thgrade boy could be, probably consoled myself with an ice cream cone or playing baseball. I don’t remember.
Years later in another relationship my girlfriend uttered words every man fears from his woman…“We need to talk.” Until that moment love seemed relatively easy. I was naïve enough to believe if I was happy, she must be happy, too. Wrong. Obviously, I had much to learn. I wasn’t the first left confused, questioning what is love? I won’t be the last.
Small wonder people puzzle over the meaning of love. Every day we hear statements like, “I love the Broncos.” “I love shopping; I love biking, hiking, movies…” We love our dogs, our cars and our favorite pizza toppings. We’d love to take a vacation, love to quit our job, love to tell our boss what we really think of him.
Culture impacts our view of love more than we realize. Western culture was instrumental in placing high value on “falling in love”; a notion that quickly spread to other cultures which previously emphasized arranged marriages.
America sets aside a day every February to glorify and celebrate love. Ask any man who has ever forgotten Valentine’s or his wedding anniversary if it was a big deal. Hallmark banks a fortune every year with mushy love cards. Poetry lovers regale objects of affection with Yeats and Whitman. Truly ambitious romanticists write their own love letters while love-challenged others venture online to find help generating e-love letters.
We associate love with our senses. “I loved him at first sight.” “Her touch tells me it must be love…” “When we kissed I tasted love for the first time.” “Love is in the air…” as if we can simply smell it and breathe it in. We FEEL love. And when the feeling is gone, it must mean that love is gone as well.
“I love you” in any language is perhaps the most abused phrase in the world. Instead of communicating selfless devotion it’s often spoken with underlining manipulative self interests. Careless expression and abuse of those three little words set people up for relational train wrecks.
Lonely, love-starved singles invest precious time, money and energy looking for love in all the wrong places. End results are often hurt, disillusionment and embarrassment. Hopeful singles can make wiser choices and avert relational train wrecks by beginning with an honest search for the meaning of true love. How can we possibly find love if we don’t know what we’re looking for?
If, in Jay Leno fashion, we took to streets asking Average Americans, “what is love?” we would hear a broad range of very different answers. We’d likely get stories of personal experiences of bliss, romance and idealism. We might hear lines from movies and other famous quotes about love. We may even get warnings served up with a hint of sarcasm or a twinge of bitterness. This mixed stage of public opinion would undoubtedly leave us more confused about love than when we first posed the question.
Fortunately, we need not ask other humans who are as clueless about love as a 5th grade boy circling the word “Yes” on a handwritten love note. We can grasp genuine love because the Bible speaks very clearly of love.
Commands to love, lessons on love, and consequences of failure to love permeate Scripture, both in Old and New Testaments. The Gospel of Jesus Christ tells the Greatest Love story ever shared. Perhaps the most well-known, obvious places to begin to learn about love as God intended is I Corinthians 13, often referred to as “the Love Chapter”.
The Apostle Paul didn’t write the “Love Chapter” arbitrarily. He placed it right in the middle of chapters exploring spiritual gifts. Prideful, self-absorbed Corinthians flaunted their spiritual gifts, but completely missed loving one another. Paul emphasized love as more significant than position, intellect and popularity. Paul also artfully articulated three timeless truths about love.
