Love

Issues and Solutions regarding Love

When Valentine’s Day Is Difficult

“I hate Valentine’s Day. I’m divorced, and I don’t have a boyfriend.” Jenny had stopped me in the parking lot of the gym to lament her situation.

“At one time, I also dreaded Valentine’s Day but not anymore.”

Jenny raised her brows and said, “What changed?”

“Let me share with you what my mentors taught me. If I want flowers and candy, I buy them.”

She raised her brows again but said nothing.

“I don’t want to be in a restaurant at dinnertime on Valentine’s Day, but I can go out to breakfast and lunch or order dinner to go.

That made Jenny smile. I told her about the times I scheduled a massage or bought a new outfit on sale. She nodded.

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Am I Loved? Will I Be Loved? Can I Really Love?

Without question, my greatest struggle and crisis of faith is, “AM I LOVED?” This question releases its evil first cousin; “WILL I BE LOVED?” Is being loved and loving contingent upon if I do some proverbial duty, service, behavior, performance enough and well enough? Close on their heels is “can I really love” without impure motive or impunity?

The only correct answer to these questions is simply God is Love.

What marvelous love the Father has extended to us! Just look at it – we’re called children of God! That’s who we really are.(1 John 3:1a, Msg)

Look deeply into the glory of love! Having begun in Father’s unmerited, unconditional, unending love; it elicits the following response!

My beloved friends let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. 8 The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love – so you can’t know him if you don’t love. 9 This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. 10 This is the kind of love we are talking about – not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God. 11 My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. 12 No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us – perfect love! (1 John 4:7-12, Msg)

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Marriage is About Honoring God

Marriage is very special to the Lord. He didn’t just create two genders and throw them together, hoping that they might be able to work out some kind of relationship. He actually create marriage when he created men and women. In other words, what’s important isn’t so much the relationship as the marriage itself.

Proverbs 18:22 NRSV
He who finds a wife finds a good thing,
and obtains favor from the Lord.

In our society, we have lowered marriage to simply relationship. It’s so much more than that. Marriage is an earthly picture of the Church’s relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. In Ephesians 5, Paul calls this kind of joining, two becoming one flesh, “a great mystery” (v. 32). And it is just that. When two—a husband and wife—join together, they become something wonderful. And that “something” is also a picture of how God wants to be joined with us.

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Am I Codependent?

If you think or believe the following statements, it may be a sign that you are codependent:

    My good feelings about who I am stem from being liked by you.

    My good feelings about who I am stem from receiving approval from you.

    Your struggles affect my serenity. My mental attention is focused on solving your problems or relieving your pain.

    My mental attention is focused on pleasing you.

    My mental attention is focused on protecting you.

    My mental attention is focused on manipulating you “to do it my way.”

    My self ­esteem is bolstered by solving your problems.

    My self ­esteem is bolstered by relieving your pain.

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Endure, Remain, Continue

1 Corinthians 13:8-13 RSV
Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Paul tells us that three things abide (endure, remain, continue): faith, hope, and love. The thing is, the only one that will exist forever is love. We know that the need for faith will fade. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 RSV). Now, we don’t see God. We must have faith to believe: “whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6 RSV). Once we see Him face to face, faith will be unnecessary.

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Are You Rejoicing in What is Wrong?

1 Corinthians 13:6 RSV
[Love] does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.

When I was growing up, going to jail was a terrible shame, not only for the person in jail, but the entire family. No one wanted to have a family member serving time, no less become that person themselves.

Now, I have children in my classroom who are intimately familiar with prison (to the point of having been there many times to visit family and friends). And sadly, these children have told me that they would like to go to prison themselves. They like having a bad “rep” and being in the position of being a bully, of having power over others.

Remember, I’m talking about elementary school aged children.

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When You Want Revenge

1 Corinthians 13:6 RSV
[Love] does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.

Ever want revenge against someone else? I think that one of the innate human emotions is the desire for one’s persecutor to suffer as much as they have caused suffering (or more). I think that many of us, at one time or another, fantasied about that horrible person being humiliated or hurt like they humiliated or hurt us.

It’s simple human nature.

But Paul tells us that we, as Christians, deny ourselves, deny our nature and choose love. We refuse to rejoice at wrong, even the suffering of our enemy, are rejoice in right. That we have a higher calling: to trust God in everything.

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Are You Irritable or Resentful?

1 Corinthians 13:5b RSV
[Love] is not irritable or resentful.


  • Love is not irritable.

      • We live in an angry society. Just last week there were two or three school shootings. That doesn’t count the hundreds of murders across the country, the thousands of crimes. And those are the angry acts that are illegal. Think about how many people were enraged by late restaurant orders, rude drivers, absent employees, unthoughtful family members.

      We live in a time of rage and depression. It seems to be getting worse and worse each year. Are we on a downward spiral toward social implosion? I think perhaps we are.

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More Than a Feeling

1 Corinthians 13:4
Love is patient and kind;

Paul has just concluded the introduction to this section with the words “…have not love, I gain nothing.” In fact, he uses Jewish parallelism to make his point:

    If I speak . . . but have not love, I am just a sound.
    If I have . . . but have not love, I am nothing.
    If I give . . . but have not love, I gain nothing.

I think (and this is simply my own thoughts, not the Word of God) that Paul is trying to say this: Without love, the Christian simply… isn’t a Christian. There is no Christian without love.

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Setting Aside Our Will

1 Corinthians 13:5a RSV
[Love] is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way…

  • Love is not arrogant or rude.

      • The KJV translates this phrase: “Charity (love) doth not behave itself unseemly.” This certainly isn’t a phrase that we use much anymore. In fact, to be honest, we’re not very concerned at all about behaving in a courteous or seemly manner in our society. To behave “seemly” is to conform one’s behavior to standards of conduct and good taste. As our moms used to say, it means simply to behave properly and according to good manners.

      So the scripture here is actually more than just not being arrogant or rude, though I truly believe that rudeness is motivated by arrogance, the idea that it’s “my way or the highway.” When we are arrogant, we do what we want and say what we want without regard to the effects that it might have on other people. In other words, we simply don’t care about anyone else (at that moment), only about ourselves, our rights, our opinions, our own actions.

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