The desire for love and affection is a common theme of the human experience. love is an inextricable feeling. Its so hard to ignore. It keeps you awake at night. Makes your heart pound in your chest. Sets off butterflies in your stomach whenever you see ‘the one’.
Or does it?
Romanticism is what was described earlier. It’s a feeling of infatuation with someone. Its often based off the idea of what that person can do for you or be to you. As a teen writing this, I know that most young relationships are fuelled by romanticism.
Not love.
Romanticism has really distinct hallmarks as well. Often relationships laced with romanticism are secret and often hidden from people around them. They are often based heavily on cosmetics than substance and very often they are not to built to last.
As a people, we have been completely hoodwinked by popular culture into believing that true love looks anything like what we see on the screen. Sadly, this is not the case and many of us find that out far too late to save us from the eventual heartbreak that romantic infatuation very often brings.
The Bible draws a clear line between romanticism and love. In fact, love is the key mantra to the Christian life. It was Jesus’ central message, and in fact, the whole Bible could be perceived as a love story for the ages in its own right (more on that later).
Everyone wants to know what true love is, often coupling the term with pop culture’s definition, but often we neglect what the Bible says about love. Love is one of the central themes in scripture and the most essential virtue in Christendom. Here are some of its hallmarks.
1. Love is open.
One could say the entire Bible is one open love letter between God and his people. The God of the old Testament can often feel estranged to the one we meet in the person of Jesus but in both we see a reckless love for humanity but in different ways.
The God of the old testament showed what we today might call ‘tough love’: openly chastising the people of Israel with multiple exiles, the loss of their homeland and countless catastrophic kings whose premierships left a lot to be desired in the way of godliness.
Even still, God demonstrated his love in a series of daring rescue missions starting with Israel’s epic emancipation from the hand of pharaoh in Exodus 12 and continuing through the prophets God would send to guide and warn his people. This all culminated in God’s most daring feat of all: Emmanuel- God with us.
In what was the most open show of love in all of history, God himself came down, and as love himself, showed what true love looks like. Importantly, Jesus laid down his life for us in open and willing sacrifice. God has never been ashamed to show he loves us, and he never will be.
2. Love never gives up. (I Corinthians 13:7)
How many a time do we see human relationships built on romantic infatuation break down over petty arguments of inherent character flaws in the other person?
The world we live in today has turned to a ‘microwave generation’ where instant gratification fuels the dopamine-gorged wastelands of the modern teenage brain, but true love never gives up. True love persists until the change is seen. Until the task is complete. Instead of giving up on the other person, true love sticks around and sees to it that whatever the issue is, it is solved.
It is this principle that God applies with us too. God knows we are flawed and imperfect, but he looks past that and sees the person he intended us to be. Like it says in Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born, I set you apart I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”. God saw you before time itself and called you good- it is this goodness that he refuses to give up on I an act of tear-jerking love.
In summary, true love is not what modern media has made it out to be. The desire for love is a natural furnishing, a function inbuilt into us by the all-loving God. But too often, the lines blur and there can be no clear distinction between God’s version of true love, and the one beamed to us through television screens and social media posts. True love is open, never gives up and, most importantly, is a vital part of the human experience with God.