If you love someone you will let them go, and if it is meant to be they will come back to you... How many times have we heard that in movies? The "hero(ine)" whose heart is filled with love but has to watch the object of his/her desire sail off into the sunset either with someone else or on some great adventure they couldn't turn down because of their beloved, lest it end in resentment... "If you love someone you will let them go". That I can agree with in some cases, but sometimes I also believe "If you love someone you will do all you can and put in the work to make things work". So which is it? I believe it simply comes down to a common denominator, selflessness. Cherishing that person's happiness whether it means allowing them to be happy without you and genuinely being happy for them (been there haha), or whether it means intentionally working on your flaws and short comings to be a better person who is better equipped to contribute meaningfully to the relationship and to his/her life. And yet this is often not how we view love. As "lovers" many of us focus on being the centre of someone else's world, we focus on how they make us feel and how we can retain that feeling, we expect way more than we think of giving. I could go on and on, but for today I'll just leave it at this, how can we find true love as Christians? The type of love that stands the test of time? Loaded question, which I don't think can be necessarily answered in one short blog post but below, Ngoni Chidavaenzi gets the ball rolling by defining love, after all you cannot identify or meaningfully pursue that which you cannot define. Finding love as a Christian.
So, it came and went! Left some elated, bubbling, head over heels in love with butterflies floating all over their insides. For some they were left bitter, in pain and tears and feeling like chewing someones head off. Some, if not most of the folk either didnt care or were just confused! They were neither here or there.Valentines Day, the Day of Love. Love (sigh!), LOVE! The most used, abused and misunderstood word in the English vocabulary, (well that is according to me anyway).The big question is, do we really understand what love is? Whether we are Christian or not, do we understand what love is and what it entails? Asking people about love elicits a wide array of responses, depending on who is responding and the condition of their heart at the time of answering, because love as we know it can have both sweet and bitter facets.
Sociologists and Psychologists agree that humans are social animals and love, being loved and being able to love are some of our greatest needs, and if you are like the majority of people out there you have probably tasted both the sweet and bitter side of love. So hard is it to come up with a proper definition of love that some of the learned folks have tried to categorise love into at least 8 different types which are mania, ludus, pragma, storge, philautia, philia, eros and agape. There is also a lot of confusion when it comes to finding true love and keeping it. I have heard a lot of people talking about love at the first sight, the chemistry of love and some even go to the extent of referring to the act of copulation or more crudely having sex as making love or lovemaking. But as Christians how do we define and experience love? The Bible tells us that God is love and that we are created in His image, which in my understanding means that God has deposited in us the ability to view and experience love as He does. Some of us have at countless times hastily quoted 1st Corinthians 13: 4-8 when we are asked about love or our partners, but the question again is that do we really understand the meaning of this scripture. To those of you, who like me, have struggled to find a good partner, this scripture is invaluable in helping you to find your true love. The best advice I ever got about finding real and true love is that firstly, you pray about the kind of person that you want, outlining the qualities that you want in your future spouse. Secondly, you do a character check of the person using 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 as the reference point. But wait a minute! Before you get too excited about the character check and go all out guns blazing on the potential partner, you should first of all go through a process of introspection to see if you are an embodiment of love. You need to heed Jesus' advice that before you see the log in the other persons eye you must first look at yourself (Matt 7:3, Luke 6:42).
Now about the character check, you do so by reading the scripture and substituting the word love in the scripture with a persons name, for example if your mate or potential mates name is John, you will then read the scripture as John endures long and is patient and kind, John is never envious nor boils over with jealousyJohn is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride), John is not rude.until you finish the whole scripture. The scripture points out about twenty aspects that should be present if we are to define or talk of love so in your character check, the more the person scores on the list, the better partner they are likely to make. Please dont get me wrong, I am not saying everyone must have all those qualities, but the more qualities they have the better and the less they have, I suggest you run for dear life as soon as possible and as fast as your feet can carry you! Likewise, if you find that you yourself are lacking in these characteristics can we indeed say you have love within yourself and are ready to seek out someone to share this with? Thats a question for you to answer!
Till next time,
Ngoni
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