The myth of "love"

Forgive me. Got some bad news about some friends. In fact, I've heard a lot of this kind of news lately. I'm afraid that I'm going to rant.

I am sick of what I call the myth of love. You hear it all the time. People fall in love. There's this connection. A spark. This almost obsessive desire to be near to each other. This insatiable infatuation. They can't get enough of each other. That's how you know it's love. It's this feeling you can't explain but share together. It's this natural chemistry. It just works.

These things may feel like love but they are hollow. The newness of the relationship gives way to familiarity and these two find that what they thought they had isn't there anymore. They must not love each other after all.Time to move on.

Love is not in the "spark". The spark may ignite a fire but that too is not love. It may become love. But love is not the spark or the flame. Love is not the smoke, however visible and impressive. Love is there when the flame calms down. Love is found in the burning coals that remain, burning far hotter than the wildest flame.

Love is commitment. Love is dedication. Love is lifting the other up and caring for the other's needs above your own. Love is being there today, tomorrow and always. Love is never giving up on each other and lifting each other up to become the best you both can be. Love doesn't make demands but encourages. Love lifts up and love endures. Love is selfless. Love never gives up and never fails. I don't think you can do any better than how Paul describes love:

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 TNIV

If I speak in human or angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Sometimes we humans just really suck at loving each other. Relationships end. Families are torn apart. Grown men and women act like selfish children. But let's not blame that on love. We've just bought the shallow imitation and then treated it as though it were the real thing.

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