What Is Love? - Part 1

                                                       

What is love?  This is a question a lot of people are asking today, and desiring an answer.  For some people love is an emotional feeling that they have over a person such as “infatuation".  Some people believe love is sex, or “making love to someone”.  And then there are those who say love is an expression such as “I love football”.  What is love?  Depending on the relationship we have with someone our level of love can be different with them.  Even our meaning of love might be different because of the relationship we have with another person in our life.  For instance there are different levels of love in various relationships such as a friendship between two people, a family with parents and children or siblings, a marriage between a husband and wife, and a dating couple with a man and woman.  Love is experienced in different relationships with people, and that is why we need to truly know “what is love?”

Writer Tom Pappalardo wrote an article on the subject “What is love?”  First love is a feeling.  He says, “Most everyone wants to experience love.  Yet do most of us really know what is true love?  If someone wants to have a better understanding of how to love in order to fully experience love, they need to get a grip on the concept of “unconditional love”.  We all experience love in some form, and in some way, but do we really contemplate what is love?   It is important to understand that love is experienced by the lover.  When you love someone, that is your very personal experience of love.  We can categorically claim that love is a unique experience of feeling love for another.”  Second, he says love is demonstrated in certain actions such as: self-sacrificing, unconditional, and selflessness. 

In other words Mr. Pappalardo is saying love is a feeling that we experience when someone expresses it to us, or when we share it with others.  He also talks about love being demonstrated through self-sacrificing, unconditional, and selfless actions by us toward others, or by others toward us.  I believe these actions are great, but we can’t base our love on our feelings by the way we respond to them.  Love must be based on something higher such as our commitment that we make to someone.  There are several words in the Greek language that tells us “What is love?”

·         Storge – Natural affection, the love you share with your family.

·         Philia – The love that you have for friends.

·         Eros – Sexual and erotic desires kind of love (positive or negative).

·         Agape – This is the unconditional love with no strings attached or divine love. 

In the Greek language there are different words that communicate love to a person, but in the English language we have only the one word for love.  In our society we lump the one word for love into all of our expressions, and it becomes more of an emotional feeling that we experience.  Love is more than an emotional feeling, it is an unconditional commitment that a person makes with another without any strings attached.  Even the Bible gives us an example of what love is in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.  It says, “Love is patient and kind.  Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.  It does not demand its own way.  It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.  It does not rejoice about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.  Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.”  

What is love?  Love isn’t just an emotional feeling, but it is an unconditional commitment that we make with someone who we are in a relationship with.  My love for my wife is stronger today, than 30 years ago when I said “I do” in marriage.  The reason is because my love wasn’t based on feelings, but it was based on my commitment to her.  We vowed that we would be committed to each other, “For better or for worst”, and we have withstood the good and bad times together.  Many dating relationships are based on physical feelings of erotic sexual love, and they carry that attitude right into their marriage.  Once difficulties hit their relationship, couples struggle in their marriage until they begin to drift apart, separate themselves from one another, and eventually get a divorce.  No matter what kind of relationship you are in whether it is a friendship, a family, or a marriage in order to stay connected together relationally, your love must be unconditional and based on a commitment with others.  I encourage you all to build your relationships on acts of self-sacrificing, unconditional, and selfless love.  You can then experience and feel loved.  Next week we will continue looking at the subject “What is love?”  

Would love to hear your thoughts, questions, or feedback.