I had someone ask me this last week about being "in love". The question was inflamed by the damage and perpetual rejection of a spouse. The wounds were so deep and had been steeped in years of ravaging deception and betrayal. It was easy (and understandable) to discern her subtle request for an "out".
I responded only with what I have come to understand and pursue. With regard to love in a marriage covenant we musn't waste time and energy seeking to distinguish between the feelings of romantic love and that of committed love. I love him (or her). Period.
I am called to love with the truest and deepest kind of love. This kind of love cannot be described with sonnets & love songs. Or with sentiments depicting butterflies in the stomach,the heart throbbing, and a twinkle in the eyes...Don't get me wrong, this is enticing, exhilarating and can even be quite motiviating, but it is horrifically incomplete. The truest love may begin that way, but must become prodigiously more. It can only be described as a resolve, a decision, a commitment...the fulfillment of a covenant. It's sacrificial, perilous, exposing, vulnerable, hopeful, patient, long-suffering and it must be completely and totally without condition.
These are not expressions of love that when we hear them (or live them out) will stir up"warm fuzzies", but they are declarations of True Love. The kind of love that calls you to lay down your life. (We don't like to hear that sermon do we?) I can tell you that I would have chosen another way. I like what makes me feel good. But I've been won over by True Love. So I don't live for me anymore. I live for the One Who took the risk of loving me...the One Who laid down His life for me. I'm eternally grateful that Jesus didn't wait for the "warm fuzzies".
I choose true love. Risky? Yes. Painful? Unbelievably.
But I don't know that I could be called to anything higher.
