How To Love

Love can be so complicated something doesn’t it?

It lifts you up like nothing else in this world. It makes your heart soar with the eagles. It makes you climb mountains. It makes you more than you ever thought you could be. And yet love seems to also be the very thing that makes us feel so vulnerable, so weak, so exposed, to silly.

We all start with such a simplistic and naïve belief system, that if I love you, and you love me, we’ll go through it all. We’ll fight the nay sayers, we’ll prove everybody wrong, we’ll show that we're different. We'll show them that love does conquer all...

And then we fail.

Relationships start to crumble, big rifts appear, feelings fade, fatigue comes in and your heart just doesn’t feel so invincible as it used to be. Love, the glue that was supposed to be holding everything together seems to melt apart. Things aren’t as simple as you first thought them to be. Perhaps, just feeling love for each other isn’t enough. Perhaps you aren’t right for one another. Perhaps the timing isn’t right. Perhaps I’m not ready. Perhaps he/she isn’t ready. Perhaps he/she isn’t good enough. Perhaps I am not good enough.

When doubts creep in, faith in love fades away. What I want, what I need becomes more important than what we want, what we need. Inevitably, one or both sides choose to call it quits. Our own happiness and welfare becomes more important than the relationship, which is seen as a hindrance. In essence, this is almost always why relationships seem to fail.

What do you do when the love you feel doesn’t translate into the relationship you want?

My brother, my sister,

If you love one another, you must be prepared to do what it takes to make it work. And that means you must love the other more than you love yourself, you must be prepared to make sacrifices, you must forgive plenty and expect little, you must give selflessly and submit humbly to one another.

You might say you already know these things. They sound so cliché, so generic, so simple. But you can even do these simple things? Have you kept these simple things in mind at that moment before you lose your anger or utter a hurtful remark?

The primary skill you learn in a relationship isn’t about learning how to accommodate one another in each other’s lives. It’s not about learning how to juggle your work, social life, personal time and relationship. Those things are important. You will learn those things along the way as the relationship progresses. But painful and difficult as they seem, they are only incidental. The true skill you learn is how to relate to one another. As mutual love and respect as your foundation, you must realize that tuning into each other’s heart and feelings are your first and most important steps towards becoming one mind, body and flesh.

When fighting, resist taking the higher ground. Resist trying to win or be proven right if it means hurting the one you love. Please learn that many problems and disagreements between you will take years and months to work themselves out. Learn to disagree without compromising your love and tenderness for one another. Problems are not a reason to stop showing kindness and care.

What if you feel like you’ve done all these things and it’s still not working? What if you feel like you’re putting all the hard work and the other is taking it all for granted? What if you feel like the relationship is lopsided and you aren’t treated fairly? What do you do then?

If you love one another, continue doing it. The pattern of love is similar to the pattern of madness. It makes no sense to put another person’s welfare above your own. But that’s precisely what love is. It goes against the grain of what we are naturally good at – taking care of ourselves.

The art of loving someone is something you learn through tears and heartache. There is no shortcut. There is no way around it. You will find yourself having to ask for forgiveness many times, and you will find yourself having to forgive many times. You will find yourself having to make sacrifice over sacrifice. It’s painful and it’s hard. But it is a labour of love. Both of you must uphold your duty to love the other. Don’t wait for each other. Start with yourself. You are both one half of the pillar that holds up your relationship. Please let this sink in.

Do not doubt if it will ever be worth the sacrifice. Do not ask if you will get back as much as you have given. There is no place for an emotional balance sheet when it comes to love. The fruits of love will grow in both the hearts that give and receive it.

I asked “What do you do when the love you feel doesn’t translate into the relationship you want….”

I couldn’t find an answer. But God did.

God found Himself the impossible task of loving a race of people who were sinful, unrepentant and totally estranged from him. But out love love, He wanted to save and repair his relationship with this race of human beings. His love led to Him taking action that was costly to Himself. He sent his son. That was when Christ was born. It was costly. He didn’t care. It was underserved. He didn’t care. It was unasked for. He didn’t care.

If this is how we have been loved, then this is how we must love one another. That’s what you do.