First, true love involves a responsiveness to the total self of the one loved. You do not fall in love with a body but with a person. He or she may not be particularly attractive to someone else, but to you that person is beautiful because of what is inside of him or her. Many of us grow up unable to think of love in terms of anything but sex. However, love and sex are not an identical in experience. I think sex is only one element of love, though an important one. Love has its ideal expression within a marriage in sex, but there are many things that comprise love which is not an sexual in their orientation.
In a proper love relationship, you enrich the totality of the other person's life. In this kind of relationship a person who has been married 20 or 40 years is still excited about his wife or her husband, much more so than on the first night of his or her honeymoon. Why? It's because he or she did not marry a body. If he or she had, that would have burned out a long, long time ago. He or she married a person, and every year that goes by, that person becomes enriched. Therefore, his or her relationship is enriched.
I think in true love there is not only a feeling of pleasure, but also of reverence. A sacredness of relationship develops. Do you ever look at your wife, or your husband, and think, God gave that person to me? What a sacred trust!
I would suggest to all girls that if a man ever says to you, "If you love me, you will give me everything," you should automatically get the picture. You are not sacred to him. If a man ever asks you to do something that will cause you to lose respect for yourself, that will cause him to lose respect for you, that is contrary to the will of God, then it is not love.
True love has a quality of self-giving. God so loved the world that He gave. I can tell when a couple is in love, the primary purpose of each person is not to exploit, but to enrich each other. Each one wants to devote his or her entire self to this other person. They both want to fuse their strengths, so that they can be a team.
In true love, a person thinks more of the happiness of the other person than he does of himself. Also, true love is selfless. Love is about willing to take responsibility as well as to accept joy. A person constantly asks himself not what he can get out of a relationship, but what he can give to it.
With many people, marriage is a cop-out. They want the pleasures, but they don't want the responsibilities. I think you can test whether you are really in love by the pressure that occurs in that courtship. God may be putting the relationship to the test so that you are convinced that you are related to a person who not only wants privileges, but who is willing to take responsibility.
Responsibility in love calls for commitment. A couple must be committed to each other and to the fact that they will not consider divorce a live option. Otherwise, they will bail out when problems come. If they do not recognize divorce as an alternative, they will work out their problems.
True love is marked by unusual joy while in the presence of the other, and by pain in separation. Magnetism develops in love. Two people who are really in love do not weary each other. But one of the most depressing scenes is to watch a couple go into marriage so excited about each other, and within six months, or six years, they can hardly stand to be together. How sad that is...
In a real love relationship, you cannot be away from your partner for long periods of time without feeling that there is something missing. There must be balance. A mature relationship can sustain separation. If you could not sustain the separation, it means the relationship has no firm foundation.
There is mutual enjoyment and satisfaction of each other without constant need of physical expression. If you cannot be together without constantly petting, you do not have the maturity essential for marriage. Marriage is not licensed prostitution and not one grand orgy. There is a lot of realism in a good marriage. Impression always demands expression, but sex or physical attraction is not the whole.
In fact, those who can not be together without physical expression before their marriage will often have no physical expression after the first year. Why? It is because they have never really built an adequate basis for their relationship - no real companionship, no real intellectual commonality, nothing that they can share other than their bodies.
True love has a protective attitude. You desire to shield the one you love from any harm, injury, anything that will be dangerous. One of the most lethal weapons in a relationship is the little chipping at one another with sarcastic barbs. Do you know what that is like? It is like pouring sulfuric acid on your arm. You keep putting enough drops on your arm and you would not have any arm. If a man comes in and says to his wife, "What do we have for a burnt offering tonight -- ha, ha, ha," she will never become a Betty Crocker.
You develop a person by magnifying his strengths BUT never ever his weaknesses. You can really destroy the person you love by finding a weak area and camping on it. Try something different. Next time your mate does something that is a part of his weakness, look for any improvement or attempts to do better and sincerely give him every bit of encouragement and try to take pride in each other.
In true love, there is a feeling of belongingness. The person in love always thinks of himself in relationship to the other person, and it is a beautiful way to live. What is he doing? What is she doing? You are not two. You just happen to be located in different places. You identify with the other and you want to share.
The true love has a feeling that you understand each other unusually well. You feel the same way about important things because there is a fusing of minds. It is very interesting to see this as it works out in a couple's relationship - to see the areas of commonality. The more they develop those areas of commonality, the more they think, feel, look, act alike.
When a couple's communication system is developed, each learns how the other thinks. In addition, the communication lines are always open. You know that you can share your ideas with that person and he would not cross you off.
Finally, love matures. It is dynamic in its growth. As Paul describes in I Corinthians 13: "Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do it wrong. It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out. If you love someone you will be loyal to him no matter what the cost. You will always believe in him, always expect the best of him and always stand your ground in defending him." This is the love that comes only from Christ, as each person is totally committed to Him.
If you are married, ask yourself if each of those qualities Paul describes are true in your relationship with your partner.
If you are single, what are you looking for in a partner? With what kind of person would you enjoy spending the rest of your life? How many of those qualities are true of you? You see, marriage is not just a matter of finding the right partner - it's a matter of becoming the right person. Don't you think so? Keep in mind that if God has a man or woman for your life, He is perfectly capable of leading you to that person. Right now, He is concerned that your focus is on becoming the right person.
Hahhaha....maybe you will think that I am married....but I am not! Just my thoughts on Love....Hope you will enjoy reading this....!
No comments:
Post a Comment