wired for love

By: Cindee Johnson
Relationship Coach
 
The world paints for us vivid descriptions of love, especially during the month of February. From television ads urging us to buy our way into someone’s heart to social media posts making everyone an expert. Emotions run rampant. Feelings are full. Advice is plentiful. Wisdom is not. 
 
Yet, there are some other love insights I believe worth sharing—from elementary school children. 

​"Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well."
 
“One of you should know how to write a check. Because, even if you have tons of love, there is still going to be a lot of bills.”
 
"Love is when someone hurts you, and you get so mad, but you don’t yell at them because you know it would hurt their feelings."
 
"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is okay."
 
"When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So now my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love."
 
And my favorite, from an 8 year old: “Don't say you love somebody and then change your mind. Love isn't like picking what movie you want to watch."
 
These kids really do offer wisdom into love: unconditional love. That kind of love is not a feeling, that kind of love is not an emotion, that kind of love is action.
 
Oh, don’t get me wrong. Feeling love isn’t bad. In fact, God wired us to feel love. If you are married or in a committed relationship, you felt something for each other when you began dating. Those feelings grew as you discovered you didn’t want to be without the other.
 
Yet, in God’s Word, there is no instruction to love as a feeling, as an emotion. God says love—true love—is all about action.

• Love never gives up.
• Love cares more for others than for self.
• Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
• Love doesn’t strut,
• Doesn’t have a swelled head,
• Doesn’t force itself on others,
• Isn’t always “me first,”
• Doesn’t fly off the handle,
• Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
• Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
• Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
• Puts up with anything,
• Trusts God always,
• Always looks for the best,
• Never looks back,
• But keeps going to the end.

 
Love never dies. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (The Message Bible)
 
Those elementary school kids really do get it. Love. Is. Action.
 
What does that mean for you and me? It means, as God’s Word says, that we make allowances for each other’s faults, we forgive when offended. It means letting go of petty fights about who is right and who is wrong.


It means cherishing your wife on the good days as well as the difficult. It means encouraging your husband when his world provides nothing but discouragement.
 
It means laughing together, crying together. It means heartache. It means joy.
 
It is full of feelings, yet can’t be based on feelings.
 
It is the most vivid commitment of love you can make to another human being.
 
And, it is the love God offers you, to me, to each and every one of us. God loves you unconditionally so you can love the same.

That kind of love is not a feeling, that kind of love is action.
 
How will you love today? 

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