What is Love?

"In this way they will train the younger women to love their husbands, to love their children,to be self-controlled, pure, fulfilling their duties at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the message of God may not be discredited (Titus 2:4-5)".

Older women are commanded to train us in three different aspects that involve our commitment, our character and our actions.

Committed to Love
There is something mysterious and genius about the fact that we need to be trained to love our husbands. I say that it is mysterious because it isn’t obvious. In fact, I can’t remember ever thinking that a young bride needs to learn to love her husband. I mean, didn’t she marry him because she loved him? Isn’t that what our culture tells us. You fall in love and then, when you realize that you are so in love you couldn’t think of loving anyone any more you get married. I say that it is genious because I believe that loving our husbands is key for the survival of our marriages.

It wasn’t until I got married that I realized that loving your husband isn't an easy and natural task. On the contrary, it is one that is naturally impossible unless there is supernatural intervention from the Holy Spirit. It wouldn’t be hard to be married to a Christian superman. Our beloved husbands, as handsome and spiritual as they may be, are humans. Furthermore, they are not only humans, but also sinful humans. They have inherited the decaying rotten nature that came after the fall. One that is unable to earn the love of another. This nature is also in us. We know, better that anyone else in this world, other than God, how awful we are. We know that God chose to love us in spite of our selves, “But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8, emphasis added).
When the butterflies that we felt in our stomach when our beloved looked at us or when we felt his touch are well gone, we need to remember that love is something else. Love isn’t a feeling, for feelings are subject to constant change and influenced by the many external and internal conditions of an individual. It isn’t admiration, for admiration only lasts until failure knocks on the door. It isn’t attraction, for there is always someone better looking, smarter and kinder around. Love is a covenant; it is a conscious decision and goal. We need to love despite of the object of our love in light of the one who is Love. We fail each other constantly, but God never fails us. We need to rid ourselves of the wrong view of love that has well ingrained in our minds and embrace God’s view. According to him, “Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious. Love does not brag, it is not puffed up. It is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered or resentful. It is not glad about injustice, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, Love never ends” (1 Cor. 13:4-8a).