Friday, August 10, 2007

Feel to love or choose to love?

Posted by Me! at 8:19 pm

A lot of people think that love is a feeling, it is something we cannot control but will fall into it. Maybe that's why the term "fall in love" came from. I used to think that "love" is a feeling too. If the loving feeling disappear, you can't love the people anymore.

However, after 1 year of marriage, I start to realise the real meaning of love. Love is never a feeling, but a choice! Someone once told me about this before, but it never hit me until I experienced it personally. In a marriage, when our spouse hurt us, it's our choice to forgive them and to continue to love them. If love is based on feeling, a marriage could be easily wrap off (close shop). No wonder nowsaday there are so many divorce case,s with the simple and common reason, "I no longer love him/her" or "he/she has done this and that and does not deserve my love". God demonstrates love well to us long before we were borned. We are all sinners, fall short of the glory of God. Somehow sometimes in our life, we ever deny Jesus, deny God's love for us before. However, God makes the choice to continue to love us, to wait for us to love Him back. Do we deserve God's love after all that we have done to Him? No, never! But He still choose to love us. I think this is the most wonderful and beautiful love we can ever find. "I love you Jesus because you first love me", how true it is to me now! Yes, it is because God first loves me that I am able to love.

Have you ever ask God a way out when you don't know how to love anymore? I had. I asked God again and again when I had a tough time in my first year of marriage, struggle to find peace with each other, struggle to learn how to love each other in the midst of conflict. I Corinthian 13:4-7 is the verse that God shows me and ask me to meditate on.

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
I am so familiar with this verse, the popular verses that use in nearly every wedding ceremony. However, to know and to apply is so different. When I start to seriously meditate on this verse, gosh, I found out how selfish my love is to my spouse. All in my mind is, "You can't make me happy, you make me angry, you irritate me...." It's all about sacrifying my need. But what God wants me to do is to love unconditionally, to love patiently, without self-seeking, not easily anger etc. I admit I fail to love!
But thank goodness, I have a God that knows how to love, how initiate love. I start to learn to apply God's love in my marriage. Yes, it's not easy I can say. But it is always the first step we need to take. I thank God that through His words, our marriage is restored!
What kind of love you give to your spouse, partner, family members or friends? Self-sacrificial love or self-seeking one?

 

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