what is love?

It is amazing how we all talk about love. What is love? When do you know that you’re in love? It is a word that we just don’t even know how to explain when asked about it. Why? In this error love is narrowed to feelings and nothing else, so tell me how do you explain your feelings to know that you’re in love, because sometimes we just wake up and realize we’re feeling a certain way but we cannot even articulate any word on how we feel. The bible than call us to love God and love of neighbours as we love ourselves. How do we know that we love ourselves, is it by how we feel towards ourselves or what we have intentionally chosen to do for ourselves despite of how we feel about us? How do you know you love God than if feelings determines love?

We happen to ask some friends as to how do they define love, and this is what some of them had to say:

“Love is something that just comes upon you and you don’t really know how to explain it but you experience. You don’t have a choice to love but it just happens.” “Love is 1 Corinthians 13 there is no other way to explain it better” “Love is a phenomena, you don’t see you don’t touch but you decide to love. It is a matter of a decision. Love is a matter of decision and commitment. Love doesn’t want to receive, love wants to give and please the next person.”

love is...

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. (1 Corinthians 13:4-5) King James version referred to love as charity, if one must look at the process of charity you realize that when you are partaking in charity you only control what you are offering not what you are receiving. Love in God’s definition is less of oneself. Love is the deep sense of care for someone that grows in a period. This care creates deep emotions towards that person or thing which we call feelings today. Love grows does not just appear. People have different definition of love according to how we have experienced the feelings that is produced by what we call love. Many see love in the eyes of what they get from that specific person, others in the eyes of what they offer.

In biblical perspective, God in John 3:16 (For God so loved the world that, He gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.) God taught us that love is giving, is a deep sense of care to a point of willing to let go what you have, and which is dear to you to secure the wellbeing of what you love. If one must look closely to this scripture God clearly gave us a picture of love. “Who so ever believe” one would not really say that the phrase does signify conditional, but rather an expression of a free will. He showed us that Him loving us does not necessary put us in a situation where there is no choice but to do what He wants. He gave us a choice to either accept His love or not. We are called to love before receiving the same love. Love is more of action than simple words. It is hard to fully love if you do not know yourself and love yourself. Loving someone means to accept and respect the next person. We must continuously examine our heart, by asking ourselves hard questions regarding how we love.

Reflection questions:

• Do we see love as receiving?

• What makes us love the people we love?

• What make us not love certain people the same way?

• Do we relate love with what we receive or have received from those people?

• Would you love someone who does not share any moment with you or who did not give you anything ever in your life?

Can you resonate with any of these definitions above? Feel free to share your opinion according to your experience and observation on this topic in the chat?