What Is Love?
Years ago I recall sitting around with a group of nurses discussing a tumultuous divorce that one of the nurses was going through. In the midst of the conversation, someone asked the question, what is love?
The responses were interesting, and often vague. Is it an emotion? Is it a decision? Is it set in stone, or changeable like the weather? Is one kind of love the same as another? Is the love for a child greater than the love for a partner? We began to wonder and contemplate if we knew what it actually meant.
One woman who had been married seventeen years said her husband had never once told her he loved her. Not even when they got married, or when they had each child. She chalked it up to his inability to express his emotions.
Another divorced woman said she had mistaken lust for love, and when the honeymoon phase was over, she realized she had married a serial cheater, completely shattering her illusion of love.
Others believed it was a choice, a partnership, and transactional arrangement with mutual benefits. To make it work, there are trade offs and compromises to be made. Many people hold to the concept that marriage is an endurance test, through thick or thin, marriage is a lifelong commitment.
There is much more to love than what we surmised. Some of the women who were present admitted they were not even sure what love is, or what it means.
Perhaps love is first recognized, and known by most people within families. This foundational love ideally demonstrates love between two parents, extending to their children, and siblings who respect and support each others differences and endeavours.
It might help to define what is not love. Control is very common, yet it is not love. Love does not constantly have to seek the approval of someone else, whether it is a family member, or a spouse.
If we end up constantly seeking approval, we give away the right to be who we are, as authentic individuals. We are not all the same, and nor can we conform to, or fit into a mold made by someone who rejects who we are.
We do not need to constantly prove ourselves. Love is not based on our achievements. It is not based on trying to prove our worth, gain acceptance, avoid rejection, in order to exist. Love does not demand a sacrifice of self.
What kind of a person rejects, and will not accept a family member? Yet they might go to church every Sunday, and give the pious appearance of being good people. If all believers are in the family of God, or the body of Christ – how is it that people who claim to be Christians can be so merciless? So judgmental? So authoritative and demanding that another adult must conform to their every whim?
How can a sibling give another sibling up for adoption? To a cult no less. It is no different than throwing their sibling into a pit. They may have the power to throw you into a pit, but God has the power to get you out of it, and will enact justice according to His own timing. Because He is merciful, and patient with us, He gives all of us plenty of time to repent.
Only a parent can give a child up for adoption. It is a legal procedure, and cannot be done on the sly, or lied about. Adoption protects the child from exploitation. That is why illegal, or feigned adoptions are unacceptable in any society. It has been that way since the beginning of time.
There are many books of the bible where each person born is described as who begat who. Every lineage can be followed through, even those who were born to the concubines of kings. No one gets to pull another person out by their roots and offload them to someone else for profit and exploitation. We are not objects to be given away, or gotten rid of. We are not something the cultist found at a garage sale. People are not throwaways.
Joseph was thrown into a pit by his siblings, and left for the dead. They took his coat and ripped it up, then showed it to his father, and told him Joseph had been killed by wild beasts. Joseph’s father was grief stricken, so not only were they cruel to Jospeh, but they also stuck a knife into the heart of Jacob.
Jacob had favoured Joseph over all his other sons. The coat they so unceremoniously ripped up, was given to Joseph by his father.
In the case of Cain and Abel. Why did Cain murder his own brother? Abel had given a sacrifice to God that was acceptable to God. The sacrifice Cain gave was not. So in a fit of jealous rage, Cain killed his brother. It was the first murder in human history, and it happened early in history, because Abel and Cain were the sons of Adam and Eve.
Of course God knew immediately what Cain had done. He also knew what Jospeh’s brothers had done to him. As it turned out, Joseph was rescued, and although he was expected to be a slave, he ended up demonstrating wisdom, and was put into a high ranking role.
Jospeh had the foresight to store up grain and provisions in abundance to prepare for famine in the land. As it turned out, his brothers travelled to get grain, and did not even recognize Joseph by then. But he knew who they were, and gave them plenty of grain, along with the money they had paid.
Initially they were frantic, as they thought it might be a ruse to accuse them of theft. But Jospeh reached out with mercy, and forgiveness. To his joy, Jacob was finally reunited with his long lost son.
As we can see, when God’s love is in the picture, we can ascertain what true love means. God knows our family, all the hardships, the conflicts, and the betrayals. Only God can work things out for the good of those who love and place their trust in Him.
In spite of our many mistakes, faults and shortcomings, we do not belong to the past, we belong to the future.
Rejection is not a measure of our worth. It is often the result of a loss of control over us. When someone only loves us based on the version of us they have crafted, or created, or deem to be acceptable, it is not love.
What kind of love is built on conditions? Since when are family relationships used to punish, take away your right to be a member of the family, or use innocent children as pawns? That is not based on love.
Love does not punish you for growth, for truth, or for who you are. Love does not set you up as a scapegoat within a dysfunctional family. Love does not try to deny who you are, or the family you were born into and raised by. Love does not cling to the past, but is able to let it go.
We have to get to the point where we do not have to betray self, to gain the approval of a more dominant and powerful family member. Estrangement is not based on our lack of love, but theirs. Love given as a condition of compliance, is not love at all. Control disguised as love is considered to be the cruelest form of deception.
Growth can be a lonely, but rewarding path. It brings clarity. It releases us from the bondage of the past. We have no control over the family we were born into. We do not have to be punished, rejected, fed to the wolves, or apologize for existing.
We do not have to be lesser than, so someone else can be more than we are. The path forward is not anger, but understanding how it all came to be, and simply letting go.
One of the things that has become crystal clear to me, is that we have to accept the truth. Not only the truth of who we are, and how things came to be, but the truth that can only come from God. As human beings, not only are we prone to being deceived, but we are also prone to self-deception.
We do play a role in all the conflicts we stumble into. None of us are pure as the driven snow.
Love is not a debt to be repaid. If it is treated as such, it is futile, and is not love at all. We do not need to dim our light so someone else can shine brighter. Love does not work that way.
Some of the greatest gifts from God relate to love, directly and indirectly. Only God knows our hearts, and based on His wisdom and love, he draws us to repentance, and humbles us. We can put our trust in Him, and be obedient, without having to live up to the expectations of men or women who do not accept us.
As part of God’s infinite wisdom, he gave us free will. God does not try to control us, or force us into a relationship with him. He knows that love is not love, if it is not given freely. It cannot be coerced. He cautions us to guard our hearts, to not be deceived, to forgive as we have been forgiven, to let go of anger, to have faith, and to give thanks for all things. We are not forced to obey these biblical instructions. No one has more power than God. For the oppressed, it is a great comfort to know God does not control us, yet He is in control of all things.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God. God’s love does not reject us, does not lie about us, does not try to make us conform to be something or someone else. God’s love teaches us mercy and forgiveness. We are secure in His love because He knows our true self.
We do not need to apologize for being who we are. We do not need to be punished for setting boundaries, or speaking the truth of who we are. We are not adopted into another family based on lies. We are adopted into the family of God, based on truth, and His promises.
We are not heirs to deception, but rather, we will inherit the Kingdom of God. The love of God is a gift, to include the saving grace of what Christ did for us on the cross.
Sometimes men cannot see beyond the capacity of their own limitations. It causes them to be insecure and controlling. Sometimes we are targets due to vulnerabilities, or being the youngest, or least powerful, in a hierarchy of abuse.
Sometimes our very existence forces a more powerful or dominant family member to face things he is not ready to face. We can bend ourselves into a pretzel, and will never be acceptable to them. Their coldness, and manipulations are not a debt we owe through self-sacrifice. It is hopeless and barren to even try, because the goal posts are always shifting, and the goal is to set us up for trickery and exploitation. I suppose it proves we are not as smart as we thought we were. Guile and duplicity is a hard act to follow.
Our obedience to God calls upon us to be truthful, to forgive, and to trust in Him, not the forces that seek to blot us out of our own family, and out of existence.
Just as people cannot and should not try to control us, we too, have no right or avenue to control them. We can pray for them, hope they will change, and forgive them. But we have no control over them.
Therefore to answer the question – what is love? In a secular world, we can only rely upon conditional, and transactional love. Men may seek a beautiful woman to compliment their lives, and women may seek financial security and wealth to compliment their lives. But without God, this type of love is fleeting.
The bible prophecy does tell us that during the end times, the love of many will wax cold, to include family betrayal and rejection.
Matthew 24:10-13 – 10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.
12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.
13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
Luke 21:16-19 – 16 And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death.
17 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake.
18 But there shall not an hair of your head perish.
19 In your patience possess ye your souls.
God teaches us what love is, so we are not confused or deceived by the secular world, or the attempts to use love, or withhold love to control us. He teaches us about betrayal and rejection, so we are able to endure the hardship, and emotional pain it causes.
1 John 4:19 – We love him, because he first loved us.
Romans 13:8 – Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.
Ephesians 5:25 – Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
1 John 4:8 – He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
John 13:34-35 – A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
1 John 4:18 – There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
Mark 12: 29-31 – And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
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