Love is a Choice

One of my friends called to tell me her husband is thinking about walking out on their family. He told her he loved her but he did not “feel the in love feelings” for her anymore. Although he says she has been a great mother and wife, he said he “is just not in it”. He admits to his selfish thoughts and actions and he is damn right about that.

As Valentines Day is approaching, it got me thinking as to what Love really is. 1 Corinthians 13 gives us a great description.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”

In other words, love is un-selfish. None of that has to do with any kinds of feelings. It focuses on what we can do for others. Love is a verb to quote an old DC Talk song. Most of you probably have never heard of them but they were the cool Christian music when I was in high school. Toby Mac came out of that band if you know him. Ok, enough about that.

That is the problem with our Hollywood idea of romance. Our culture tells us that if we don’t feel in love anymore, than get out and fall in love with someone else. The falling in love part is the easy, fun part. I am sorry, but what in life is easy and fun and lasting? Not saying that I want to be in a marriage with no feelings. And not saying that there are not reasons or circumstances to get out of an abusive or adulterous marriage. But anything in life that is going to be successful is going to take some hard work, dedication and not giving in to selfish desires.

When I focus on what my husband is not doing for me and what expectation he is not fulfilling for me, than I am miserable. But when I focus on how I can support and encourage my husband and how I can be a better partner to him, than I am fulfilled in his happiness with me as his wife. Feelings are fickle and I can’t trust them. In fact, my feelings should follow my actions and my thoughts not the other way around. The more I practice loving my husband, the more I feel love for him.

I can verbalize my needs and wants to him but he can’t hear me very well if I am being a witch with a capital B! He responds best to me when I am kind and loving and thoughtful. Hmmmm, beginning to sound a little like 1 Corinthians was right.

Well, God should know because He is love. He created us to love and to be loved. He did not create us to fall in love over and over and over again. His point in having us have a monogamous long life partner was to learn about what real love is, beyond and beneath all the “feelings” of love. The more I unselfishly love my husband, the more he loves me in return and the more he loves me regardless of his feelings, the more I love him. The God ordained cycle of true love. Not the world’s ideology of happily ever after.

A major component is what we put into our minds. If we are reading romance novels and watching romance movies and comparing our husbands to a made up character on TV who has his lines scripted for him, than our marriages our going to suffer the unrealistic expectations of Hollywood. But if we are filling our minds with what the Bible says about love by reading things that support God’s view of love, than we can view our marriage correctly. The Bible itself mentions love over 500 times and there are great resources out there like Kyria’s Marriage Partner which is an online devotional that offer us encouragement and hope in how to practically have a life- long romance despite our fluctuating feelings.

We were created to go through life with our partner just like our wedding vows say.  Through better and worse, through hard times and good times, through trials and mountain tops, through having babies and losing babies, through rich times and poor times, through sickness and health. It assumes that we will have all these times throughout our lifetime whether we feel like it or not. Until death do us part. Not until we want to feel the “in love” feelings again.

Doesn’t it warm your heart when you hear stories about an older couple where the man stood by his wife through cancer and nursed her to health and saw her to other side? We can have a marriage like that too full of giving and receiving true love. 

Because it is not a feeling, love is a choice.