As a not so perfect Christian I’ve grown up knowing the definition of love being synonymous with God. God is love after all. But honestly what is love, and when I say I feel it, how do I know, what I’m feeling is love?
Welcome to my blog, this week has been incredibly surreal for me, celebrated my 26th official year of life and it was beautiful to soak in the moment with family and friends throwing me a surprise dinner. I hope your week has been spectacular and that love has led you throughout this week.
So how do I know when its love? Like most things that qualify to have their own name, there must be rules met before I can jump up and down exclaiming I am in love.
Hollywood and other forms of media make the contention that when its love, its usually followed up by the act of sex. Which leads this conversation to take awkward turns leading to, “if you love me, we should do it?” Extortion at it’s most basic.
If it’s not about sex usually I tend to define love as “something cultivated over time between two people”. At least this one seems to understand that love is confirmed the longer something continues to be done. Others break love into four parts;
1. Storge – this is about having empathy for others
2. Philios – this is love for friends, kinda like the friendzone
3. Eros – this is that romantic, 90s RnB, type of love
4. Agape – this is unconditional God love
I’ve always looked at these four and thought they are essentially the exact same thing. The steps to all these love are fundamentally the same, it’s just when we’re in love we tend to be slightly more intimate than usual. However, minus the intimacy, every choice is still really wired down to just acting the same way regardless who it is.
As a boy growing up, I felt deprived of love when I didn’t have a father through my growth. So absence doesn’t feel like love, and if you love someone how would you leave them alone? Which is why long periods of separation to decide if we are working or not seem counter productive to me
So love must have a path assigned it that if conditions are met, should make love. Now whether we are all capable of love is another matter entirely, though I would fancy, that we do.
The qualities defining love based on the bible are arguably the most thorough making them my choice for the this article, however they are also many so a select few will light the road. Love is;
Patient
Kind
Not envious
Humble
Righteous
Honest
Persistent
Love is righteous, is probably the most difficult for me, but honestly they are all difficult. To be patient always? To be kind even when I feel crushed and anger is at the gates of my tongue? Righteous, always doing the right thing, I struggle with the right words to say, yet I must be responsible to do the right thing always? Seems a lot to take it.
Let me take a step back, all these rules have my head spinning. I feel like I can’t remember those qualities and yet as I read each one I’m reminded of instances when I was faced with a challenge to emulate a quality and I failed the test.
Like, be honest Shash, why are you dating her? Like what do you like about her besides how she thinks? And can you build a relationship based on that?
But what I should have been asking is, Shash be honest, what do you want in a relationship? I asked but I didn’t care to answer or more accurately I didn’t know how to answer and so when everything crushed and I blamed her for all the misgivings in the relationship. How could I be honest with her, when I couldn’t be honest with me. So when I said, it’s not you, it’s me that was probably the most truthful thing I’d ever said.
To be loving and act accordingly is not an easy task as life seems dedicated to testing my values and principles at every turn. Shaking everything I’ve built even as I build. But ultimately the quest for me hinges on expressing my true self and at its core, I want my true self dripped in love.
So I assign my idea of love to the bible even though I’m not the most knowledgeable Christian. But I simply see it this way, how I want to be treated is how I want to treat others. Rules make up what sport is being played and since interaction is not a one player sport. I’d define my rules for love as being soaked in biblical aura.
I hope you consider joining me on this journey to spread love, and I’d love to know how you define love and what keeps you grounded to continue acting in love.
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