Genuine love involves a commitment. Since it would be too demanding to enter a total personal commitment with several people of the opposite sex, we eventually must narrow our choice to one person. Most people do not have the emotional energy to maintain several love relationships concurrently. It is too exhausting.
Immature and inexperienced persons often enter personal commitments that they later find impossible to honor. Moonlight, music, and romance go to their heads, and they make a promise of love that they later find themselves unable to live with. Such people abandon the commitment made, head for the courts, and proceed recklessly toward a new love relationship without ever challenging their personal ingenuity, developing their resources, or testing their coping abilities. Love will work if we work at it, but people today fail to work at giving love a chance, and wise individuals select carefully before investing such a sacred commodity in a lifelong commitment.
Genuine love is unconditional. A love with conditions attached isn't genuine, and only in an atmosphere of unconditional love can we lower our defenses enough for intimacy to develop.
A certain housewife who sensed conditional love from her husband told how his love seemed to be based on whether the house was clean and orderly at all times. She said that she needed to know he loved her whether the house was clean or not in order to keep the house clean! Similarly, a woman may sometimes give sexual love based on conditions to which her husband must measure up. Such a wife promises to gratify her husband's sexual needs provided that he completes tasks beforehand or that he meets certain standards of behavior.
Perfect demonstrations of unconditional love are not consistent with human behavior. Our emotional and psychological weaknesses prevent us from being totally free to give love unconditionally to others. But unconditional love provides an ideal toward which we may strive.
Genuine love attempts to meet the needs of the other. A favorite cartoon of mine shows Charlie Brown in his pajamas on his way to Snoopy's doghouse with a glass of water. The caption reads: "Love is getting someone a glass of water in the middle of the night."
It rarely taps our energies to be loving when our mates are affection ate and considerate. But how difficult it is to be loving under more trying circumstances—when he speaks unkindly, when she refuses to listen, when he is late for meals, when she neglects the mending.
In the face of such problems, I have developed what I call "the test of love." A person is to respond in a loving manner even though the mate has acted thoughtlessly. When we can dedicate ourselves to fulfilling the needs of the other even though our own needs have been thwarted, we are exercising genuine love.
Genuine love enables us to love ourselves. Genuine love of another is premised on a genuine love for oneself. The Bible asks us to love our neighbors as ourselves. The implication is clear: Whatever we would do for our neighbor, we should also do for ourselves. In the marriage relationship this means that we will do for our mates what we do also for ourselves.
Christians often find this concept difficult to grasp, because much of the Christian doctrine revolves around "doing for others. " We have regarded thinking of "self" or feeling worthy as inherently sinful. But loving oneself does not involve pride or a noisy conceit. Instead it is a quiet sense of security blessed by feelings of adequacy. When a person possesses such self-respect, he appreciates his own worth. He is able, in a healthy way, to assess his abilities in a realistic manner and feels assured that he is equal to others. Pride, however, involves an unrealistic appraisal that leads one to feel superior to others.
The thought of appreciating ourselves or feeling worthwhile is often a foreign thought, yet marriage partners can engage in satisfying relationships only in proportion to the respect and belief they hold for themselves.
Genuine love allows the other to be himself. Love is not possessive (1 Corinthians 13:4). Genuine love, then, affirms the uniqueness of the individual by the marriage partners giving their mates a freedom to be themselves. It does not attempt to possess or manipulate others. It means that we will preserve our mate's freedom to think his own thoughts, retain his own feelings, and make his own decisions. It releases others to become their best selves according to how they perceive the picture.
Such a love leaves room for others to have a variety of friends and interests beyond the marriage relationship, for we each need a certain amount of "space" in which to develop our identities and potentialities. By not attempting to become the other's entire life, we free him or her to enjoy the full range of life's wondrous experiences.
Genuine love is permanent. One of the most beautiful characteristics listed in I Corinthians 13:8 is the permanence of genuine love. Love never fails. Yet the divorce courts are jammed with bitter and disillusioned couples, all of whom at one point or another claimed to be in love.
Much of what we call love today begins with ardent passion, but like a beautiful plant, it will wither and die if the parties involved do not understand how to nourish and care for it. Love, even genuine love, is fragile.
It takes self-discipline to be a genuinely loving person. In the first chapter I quoted my favorite definition of marriage: "the total commitment of the total person for a total life." The key word is commitment, which in turn implies permanence.
In our marriage it operates like this. The feelings and circumstances of the moment cannot alter the love that Harry and I have for each other. Our commitment to one another holds us permanently together even though our emotions may fluctuate. At times Harry fails me, and my romantic feelings die. On other occasions I seriously falter in my efforts to be a genuinely loving mate. Sometimes we find ourselves consumed with feelings of anger, resentment, bitterness, and despair. But we have pledged ourselves to one another in an uncompromising decision when we echoed the words: "In sickness and in health ... for richer for poorer ... for better or for worse ... from this day forward .....Our romantic feelings may fail us, but our genuine love holds us together through those troubled times.
The key to putting the principle of genuine love into practice is selflessness. Fulfillment in a total love relationship comes as one matures out of self-centeredness into genuine love. The way to receive love is to give it. Jesus said, "Give, and it shall be given unto you" (Luke 6:38), and the teaching He enunciates applies equally to the area of marriage. If you want a deeper love relationship, begin by giving more love. Instead of waiting for your mate to demonstrate affection for you, take it upon yourself to initiate the first actions. Discover your mate's needs, and begin to fill them now!
Immature and inexperienced persons often enter personal commitments that they later find impossible to honor. Moonlight, music, and romance go to their heads, and they make a promise of love that they later find themselves unable to live with. Such people abandon the commitment made, head for the courts, and proceed recklessly toward a new love relationship without ever challenging their personal ingenuity, developing their resources, or testing their coping abilities. Love will work if we work at it, but people today fail to work at giving love a chance, and wise individuals select carefully before investing such a sacred commodity in a lifelong commitment.
Genuine love is unconditional. A love with conditions attached isn't genuine, and only in an atmosphere of unconditional love can we lower our defenses enough for intimacy to develop.
A certain housewife who sensed conditional love from her husband told how his love seemed to be based on whether the house was clean and orderly at all times. She said that she needed to know he loved her whether the house was clean or not in order to keep the house clean! Similarly, a woman may sometimes give sexual love based on conditions to which her husband must measure up. Such a wife promises to gratify her husband's sexual needs provided that he completes tasks beforehand or that he meets certain standards of behavior.
Perfect demonstrations of unconditional love are not consistent with human behavior. Our emotional and psychological weaknesses prevent us from being totally free to give love unconditionally to others. But unconditional love provides an ideal toward which we may strive.
Genuine love attempts to meet the needs of the other. A favorite cartoon of mine shows Charlie Brown in his pajamas on his way to Snoopy's doghouse with a glass of water. The caption reads: "Love is getting someone a glass of water in the middle of the night."
It rarely taps our energies to be loving when our mates are affection ate and considerate. But how difficult it is to be loving under more trying circumstances—when he speaks unkindly, when she refuses to listen, when he is late for meals, when she neglects the mending.
In the face of such problems, I have developed what I call "the test of love." A person is to respond in a loving manner even though the mate has acted thoughtlessly. When we can dedicate ourselves to fulfilling the needs of the other even though our own needs have been thwarted, we are exercising genuine love.
Genuine love enables us to love ourselves. Genuine love of another is premised on a genuine love for oneself. The Bible asks us to love our neighbors as ourselves. The implication is clear: Whatever we would do for our neighbor, we should also do for ourselves. In the marriage relationship this means that we will do for our mates what we do also for ourselves.
Christians often find this concept difficult to grasp, because much of the Christian doctrine revolves around "doing for others. " We have regarded thinking of "self" or feeling worthy as inherently sinful. But loving oneself does not involve pride or a noisy conceit. Instead it is a quiet sense of security blessed by feelings of adequacy. When a person possesses such self-respect, he appreciates his own worth. He is able, in a healthy way, to assess his abilities in a realistic manner and feels assured that he is equal to others. Pride, however, involves an unrealistic appraisal that leads one to feel superior to others.
The thought of appreciating ourselves or feeling worthwhile is often a foreign thought, yet marriage partners can engage in satisfying relationships only in proportion to the respect and belief they hold for themselves.
Genuine love allows the other to be himself. Love is not possessive (1 Corinthians 13:4). Genuine love, then, affirms the uniqueness of the individual by the marriage partners giving their mates a freedom to be themselves. It does not attempt to possess or manipulate others. It means that we will preserve our mate's freedom to think his own thoughts, retain his own feelings, and make his own decisions. It releases others to become their best selves according to how they perceive the picture.
Such a love leaves room for others to have a variety of friends and interests beyond the marriage relationship, for we each need a certain amount of "space" in which to develop our identities and potentialities. By not attempting to become the other's entire life, we free him or her to enjoy the full range of life's wondrous experiences.
Genuine love is permanent. One of the most beautiful characteristics listed in I Corinthians 13:8 is the permanence of genuine love. Love never fails. Yet the divorce courts are jammed with bitter and disillusioned couples, all of whom at one point or another claimed to be in love.
Much of what we call love today begins with ardent passion, but like a beautiful plant, it will wither and die if the parties involved do not understand how to nourish and care for it. Love, even genuine love, is fragile.
It takes self-discipline to be a genuinely loving person. In the first chapter I quoted my favorite definition of marriage: "the total commitment of the total person for a total life." The key word is commitment, which in turn implies permanence.
In our marriage it operates like this. The feelings and circumstances of the moment cannot alter the love that Harry and I have for each other. Our commitment to one another holds us permanently together even though our emotions may fluctuate. At times Harry fails me, and my romantic feelings die. On other occasions I seriously falter in my efforts to be a genuinely loving mate. Sometimes we find ourselves consumed with feelings of anger, resentment, bitterness, and despair. But we have pledged ourselves to one another in an uncompromising decision when we echoed the words: "In sickness and in health ... for richer for poorer ... for better or for worse ... from this day forward .....Our romantic feelings may fail us, but our genuine love holds us together through those troubled times.
The key to putting the principle of genuine love into practice is selflessness. Fulfillment in a total love relationship comes as one matures out of self-centeredness into genuine love. The way to receive love is to give it. Jesus said, "Give, and it shall be given unto you" (Luke 6:38), and the teaching He enunciates applies equally to the area of marriage. If you want a deeper love relationship, begin by giving more love. Instead of waiting for your mate to demonstrate affection for you, take it upon yourself to initiate the first actions. Discover your mate's needs, and begin to fill them now!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment