I once asked a group of young men, “What kind of lover are you?” After some sheepish looks at each other, one of them said, “It depends what girl I am with!”
These guys missed the point of the question. I did not ask them about the girls of their dreams; it was a question about each of them, “What kind of lover are YOU?”
You see, the person you are with does not determine what kind of lover you are. Being a lover is a quality that is within you, regardless of who you are with.
We are born with a deep need and desire to be loved. We are born with the potential to reach out to others with love. Yet most people have difficulty giving and receiving love.
Being a loving person is a distinctive trait of followers of Jesus. Being loving is essential for harmony in a church and the witness of the church in the community. And certainly being a great lover is necessary for harmony in a marriage. While there are people with whom we might not enjoy sharing life together, the teaching of the Bible is clear. If we have experienced Christ’s love, we have the capacity to love anyone.
It is interesting that the Bible does not tell me to marry the person I love; it tells me to love the person to whom I am married. This is particularly remarkable since in biblical times, most marriages were arranged. Isaac and Rebekah loved each other even though they never met until they were to be married.
UNDERSTAND YOURSELF AS A LOVER
Perhaps much of our confusion about love is because we don’t really understand love. Oh, we’ve heard the great Greek words eros, storge, phileo and agape, but despite the explanations, we are confused about the dynamics of love and the factors that contribute to our being able to be good lovers.
Dr. Allan Fromme wrote, “Our efforts to understand love begin with understanding ourselves as lovers… Each of us feels in his heart that he is a good lover, or that he could be if he only had the right person to love or the right atmosphere for love … No one admits to himself that he is a less-than-average lover, or merely an average lover. We may admit certain reservations about our capacity to love in some circumstances but never in ourselves.”
The basic issue concerns me. What kind of lover am I?
A LEARNED BEHAVIOR
To understand ourselves as lovers, we must know that no one is born with the ability to love. In the same way we are born with the potential to run and jump but not the ability to run and jump, so we are born with the potential to love but not the ability to love.
The ability to love is a characteristic that is acquired; it is a learned behavior. It is learned in a way that is consistent with our culture and upbringing.
Dr. Wm. Menninger wrote, “We learn to love only when we are loved.” This is pivotal. Our capacity to receive love and to express love has been shaped by our culture, our families and the myriad of experiences we have been through.
A baby who is brought up in a warm, loving environment will have a greater capacity to both receive and give love than a baby who is brought up in a harsh, cruel environment.
Some people don’t know how to receive love. Perhaps they have been hurt in a relationship, been brought up in a tension-filled home or raised as an orphan because parents died at an early age. The evidence is clear: if you have not learned how receive love, in all probability you will have difficulty in expressing love.
Each of us has to learn how to receive love from others and then in turn, learn how to express love to others. Some of us have had love-filled experiences in our upbringing. Others have had a lack of love in their backgrounds. This means that each of us naturally have a different capacity to give and receive love. It also explains why no two people mean the same thing when they say they love each other.
Some people have developed the capacity to give a great deal of love; others have a smaller capacity. Some people need a great deal of love to be shown to them; others are very suspicious of anyone who tries to show them love. No two marriage partners have the same ability to give and receive love because each of them has learned to give and receive love differently.
A GREAT SOCIAL ISSUE
For the last two generations there has been a steady erosion of wholesome family life. The breakdown of marriages in resulting one-parent families and abuse-filled homes has frequently led to children being raised in an environment where they are not exposed to love. They have never seen loved expressed by their parents. The cumulative result is that we now have a generation of people who have never learned to either receive love and to give love. People today have more difficulty loving than people did 50 years ago.
Loving is a learned behavior. Someone has to teach love by demonstrating and modeling love for us. Unless I am loved, I will have difficulty loving anyone.
I have counseled many couples who have struggled with this. Each person in a marriage has a different capacity to receive love. If I have never learned to receive love, I will always be suspicious or question the genuine love of my partner. And if that is the case, I will never be able to show love to the satisfaction of my partner. The consequence is great frustration.
GOOD NEWS
Regardless of a person’s upbringing, it is possible to learn both how to give and receive love. This is the marvel of the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches us how!
This is what John was getting at when he wrote, “We love because he first loved us.“ (1 John 4:19). We would not have the capacity to love others, if we had not first received his love.
For some, it is hard to believe God loves them. They need to experience his love before they can believe he loves them.
This is why a person brought up in the most hate-filled and abusive situation can become genuinely loving, sensitive and caring. Spiritual conversion brings radical life-change. Love is at the heart of this change.
This is also the background of Paul’s instructions for older women to teach younger women how to love. Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children… (Titus 2:3-4).
YOU CAN BE A BETTER LOVER!
Experience the wonder of God’s great love.
The choice to love is a step of faith. Your love may be reciprocated. It may not be returned. Follow the example of Jesus. Many people reject Jesus’ love but he still chooses to love them.
You cannot force someone to love you. You can’t make someone love you in exchange for your love. You must choose to be a lover regardless.
Take the initiative. If you wait for someone to love you first, you may wait a long time.
A complete directory of articles can be found at http://calsinsights.com/
You can receive this material regularly by email – just fill in your email address at the bottom left side of the home page under subscription options and you will receive a copy of each new article as it is posted.
To forward the material to someone else, press the “share this” button and fill in an email address.
I appreciate all your comments and suggestions.