Loving Those you Care For

Often, we think that True Love is that gushy feeling we get when someone we are attracted to returns our affection. That is not true love. True love, the love that lasts for decades is loving someone enough to put their needs above our desires. We must love them enough to put our desires on the rung below their needs, not their desires. The thing we get wrong about love is we tend to think that giving someone what they want is love. We are so anxious to have our own desires met, one of which is affection being returned, that we give and promise those things we can not or should not give believing that it will not only show another that we love them, but that affection will be reciprocated. Those things that we need in life are very much different than those things we desire. We desire candy that is neither good for us or positive in its benefits yet when someone gives us candy we say, "They must care for me because I wanted candy and they gave it to me."

As a recipient of love, we must love the other enough to say, "I would like to accept your gift, however, if you give this gift to me, it will create a burden for you. Even without this gift, I will reciprocate affection and accept your generous thought as though it were here and now, because my desire is to do what is best for you above my own desires. That is love. Each loving the other enough that burdens are not created, stress is eliminated and life becomes simple. We can trust in a love like that because we are confident that all will benefit equally from the relationship. We can trust in a love like that because we know the other has our best interest at heart. We can trust in a love like that because it is simple everyday actions that reinforce that both are willing to make concessions in the area of desire.

Love is an iron clad commitment of the will that says, "No matter what, I will be here for you to help you through," and then doing it. Love is work, a commitment to work out the rough spots. Love is work fighting against our own desires that try to preempt caring more for someone else. When we ask ourselves, "Who will benefit from this," anything with an answer less than, "Everyone equally with no additional burden," is not love, not the kind of love that we should try to model. 1 Corinthians 13:5 "Love, does not seek its own." 1 Corinthians 10:24 "Let no one seek his own, but each one the others well-being." No better definition of love exists.