The fog of war is nothing compared to the fog of love. Life is hard, and love is the hardest part. Love toys with the mind, bending it beyond its dexterity, mushrooming until it is impossible to think about anything else. At times love seems as fickle as the wind, yet other times it glimmers as the anchor of our humanity. If only love was an algorithm. If only it was black and white, yes or no. If only it could neatly fit into a magazine, right next to the cooking tips. If only it came with a warranty for those who invest everything toward its cause. With love, nothing ever plays out how you see it in your mind. Nothing.
A girl emailed me and told her story about her last relationship. The relationship started out so well and then ended in a hopeless tailspin of "He loves me, he loves me not." I felt her confusion and frustration and pain. And I began to wonder if her ex-boyfriend had multiple personality disorder. One day he'd act as though he was head-over-heels in love and the next day he would blow her off. She forgave him and gave him grace upon grace, but no amount of thoughtful gestures from her could bring back that lovin' feelin'. Her every effort to be closer to him only pushed him farther away. The worst part is that she is now left torturing herself, trying to figure out what she's done wrong. She didn't do anything wrong. Why do the good ones always have to suffer? Anyway, she asked me for advice and I quoted the old proverb that says "Run Forest, run."
So what are we supposed to learn from all of the headaches and heartache? Are we supposed to learn to love less? That seems bad. So are we supposed to learn to distrust the people we love? That doesn't seem quite right either. Or maybe to learn to distrust ourselves. That could be good. Trusting myself means that I'm not trusting God. That's why I like the Bible. I need something outside of myself to rely on for direction. Some people think that they are following God's heart when they are really just following their own heart and claiming that it's God. That is known as psychological projection where someone projects their feelings onto someone else. Those kind of people don't like the Bible because the Bible is too direct and honest. They want a flattering pat-on-the-back but the Bible tells them that they've got something in their teeth and a booger hanging out of their nose and that their shoes are untied. So they read something else. Anyway, I need to trust God and not myself in order to navigate my way around this maze. With most mazes you are trying to find your way out, but I'm beginning to see that there is no way out of this love thing. We discover where the deadends are, but there is no exit and that is the point. And even with the Bible's razor-sharp words, love is still so messy. We can never quite get it right. There's no closure. I used to analyze my relationships but now I know better. If I try to predict what the other person is thinking or feeling, based on reason alone, then I'm usually wrong.
Maybe, this is why God seems so complicated, because God is love, and love is the epitome of complicated. Maybe, this is why we get so frustrated with God sometimes. We come wanting answers and He tells us a riddle. And then we ask Him for the answer to that riddle and He tells us another riddle. And then we don't want to ask anymore questions. But maybe, God is really trying to tell us that our comfort is not as important as we think. We want love without pain, and yet pain is an integral part of love. It's interesting that Jesus's death on the cross was the greatest expression of love. It wasn't very romantic, in fact it was ugly. There's nothing pretty about a bloody, naked man crying out in agony. Love without pain and you have no Crucifixion. No Crucifixion and you have no Resurrection. Yes, unrequited love kills us. It is a cross. But when a part of us dies then we are ready to undergo a resurrection. Death and love are not so far apart, death makes way for glorified love. . .as long as we don't stay in the grave. Love is boobytrapped to make us need God, only God can resurrect deadened hearts.
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I so enjoy your thoughts and insights and the unblushing bearing of your soul. Also, at times I feel a little embarrassed as though I’ve bumped into someone who was sitting alone in a quiet place and having a good cry and that my arrival is ill-timed. But today I feel like “that old married guy” who’s invading a site that’s primarily (I presume) followed by singles. At any rate; this old married guy was single, twice (some people are slow learners in his life.) I remember viewing love and marriage from “that side” of the tunnel. It was extremely troubling to look into that tunnel and not see any light at the other end and not know just how long it was, what was inside it or what was waiting for me at the other end. Then, once I ventured into the tunnel and began to see a light at the other end, I just hoped that light wasn’t a train. What’s in this foggy dark tunnel? As one who’s been through and back and then through again I’m gonna take a crack at clearing away some of the “fog” of love.
ReplyDeleteWhat is love? Sometimes when I think of love I think of wine. Over the years I’ve taken a great interest in all the aspects of wine. I even work in the harvest season for a local winery. Boy oh boy wine can really be complicated! I go to tastings and I hear people talk about different flavors (wine people call them “notes”) like: Earthy, peppery, grassy, fruity, dry, tannins, flinty and so forth. They smell corks, they finger the corks, they look at the color of the wine in the bottle, they pour it, they swirl it, they sniff it, they look at the color of the wine in the glass then finally they taste it and then begins the rhetoric. It’s all kinda silly if you ask me. Wine is really simple. Pop the cork on a good red, let it breathe a little and then drink it. If you like it then buy that one again in the future. If you don’t like it then don’t buy it again, but for goodness sake just taste it already! It turns out wine is really not all that complicated. People make it complicated so that they can sound cultured or cool or whatever. At the end of the day wine is just fermented grapes and either you like it or you don’t. Don’t mystify it.
So, back to love. What is love?
God is love. He is love personified. He is perfect love. But, right after that, the most succinct description of love that I can think of is: Love is a choice. Love is not something we fall into. Love is not something that is beyond our control. We never have to wonder if we love someone. We love someone when we choose to love them. Love is not magic or mystical or mysterious. Love is just love. Love is the benefit of another at the cost of self. Lust is the benefit of self at the cost of another.
Infatuation is a feeling; real love involves a commitment. Infatuation is just love of emotion. Real love though, is love of devotion. Only the emotions are affected in infatuation, but in real love the will is involved. A person can “fall into” infatuation, but “grows into” real love. Gentlemen, have you ever seen a girl who was so beautiful that you though you’d faint? This is infatuation. It is based totally on physical attraction. In regards to real love there is no validity to “chemistry”. That lives in the realm of infatuation.
ReplyDeleteIs infatuation bad? Nope. It is usually the catalyst for two people wanting to get acquainted. The problem arises when only one person has the catalyst. This is often mistakenly referred to as “unrequited love”. Listen, there is nothing wrong with passion, desire, chemistry, infatuation or attraction until people begin to confuse them with Love. All these things exist in love but they don’t define love. Love can stand on its own. Love is a choice. All these other things are just icing on the cake. Plus, God wants us to experience these other things as well. After all, He created these feelings. We may as well use them.
Recently, on an episode of the Bachelorette there was a fellow who had to take a break from the show and return to an old girlfriend to try to “find out” if he was still in love with her, as if he was on a mission to solve some mystery. Listen, love is not something you ever wonder about. You love someone when you decide to. If you rely on external stimuli to let your mind to “fall in love” then it stands to reason that external stimuli will let you down and you’ll “fall out of love”. That’s why divorce is so rampant. People float around life responding to feelings and stimuli and infatuation. But the problem is that they call all these things “love”. It is as if it is completely out of their control and they must just yield to it.
I am a firm believer that any two people who are committed to serving God and to becoming transformed into His likeness could get married and live happily ever after. I’m sorry if this sounds completely unromantic and dispassionate but it’s true. Love is a choice and once we choose it we must choose to keep on choosing it and then the beautiful fruit begins to appear.
It could be that the reason there are so many chronically single people is that they are all holding out for the perfect match. Are they afraid to settle? Are they waiting for all the chemistry to be just right? Are they waiting for all the feelings to be just as they’ve always imagined? Are they waiting for that magic moment like in Sleepless in Seattle where they see each other from across the highway? Hey, let’s face it. Those things do happen but they are the exception and not the rule. I think God has to make those things happen sometimes so that He can get His point across to two people who are really dense. Most people get saved and give their lives to God because they choose to. But, every once in a while there is the person He has to knock of his donkey with a blinding light and a voice from heaven. Don’t be that guy.