Is Love Enough?
It was a hot Saturday night in January, I had slept off on the cold tiles in the living room because of the heat. I woke up and proceeded to the bedroom when I overheard some people arguing and almost fighting. At first I thought it was coming from the next compound, but the intensity of the fight changed my thought to the flat right above my apartment.
It turned out to be true as I saw another neighbor whose flat was beside mine beckon on one of the neighbors upstairs to unlock the gate that leads to the staircase. Ordinarily, I used to be able to sleep through noisy and busy environment, but on this day, I couldn’t. I tossed and tossed while eavesdropping on the wife’s aggressive conversation prior to the intervention of the neighbor downstairs.
I couldn’t help but wonder if they had actually started their love life like this, if they didn’t, what happened?
How did they get to this point where they are fighting so much that the entire compound is aware of their fight?
What changed? What could make a man who once loved his woman to find delight in making her a punching bag because “she offended him”? What’s sponsoring the wife’s effrontery to put her life at risk with an ill-tempered husband? A thousand questions ran through my mind.
It occurred to me that many things could be wrong but to start with, their definition of love could be the beginning of their problems. You see, for a man to be able to love another man like himself, he has to be broken by God and like someone said recently, “DEAD TO HIMSELF”.
What does it mean to be broken by God?
D1: Brokenness is coming to the end of our self-life and recognizing that our only hope is in the grace and mercy of our God alone.
D2: Brokenness is the working of God in a person’s life leading to the abandonment of oneself to a place of complete dependence and trust in the Father’s care.
From both definitions, we can tell that they fit into the “Dead to self” description, right? A place where your choices and perspectives no longer take the floor. A place where you realize that your willpower can take you nowhere, a place where you recognize that you’re nothing without God.
If you can get to the point, then you can love another person. Why? You have experienced God’s love and compassion and by that, you can replicate it with others.
If you haven’t learnt how to love by experiencing God’s love, you will struggle to love another person. Because to you, that person is not deserving of the love you’re giving them. We forget that we’re also not deserving of God’s love. we forget that we were conceived in sin. we forget our many mistakes, sins and error that God wipes clean.
And I will be merciful to them in their wrongdoings, and I will remember their sins no more. Hebrews 8:12
We forget the days when we go back to our vomits, and God never casted us away. If only we can go to Christ to learn of him, we will know the right way to love another. We will understand the importance of loving another rightly and we will love rightly.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 1 Corinthians 13: 4–7 TLB
Back to my question. Is love enough? Yes, it is enough if done the right way, and the right way is to experience God’s love. If you are willing to experience and embrace God’s love, I can assure you that you will have the capacity to love another human till the end of age.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16
You might want to ask, “what of people who experienced God’s love and still divorced their spouse?”, the answer is that they took their gaze away from the prototype and fixed it on each other’s weakness. Like Peter did on the sea the other day when he saw Jesus walking on the waters and he wanted to do the same. He asked the Lord, and he asked him to come but the moment he took his eyes away from the Lord to see if he was sinking, he started sinking indeed.
Finally, in your quest for a man or woman with whom to do life with according to God’s purpose, go for a man who has learnt how to receive the Love of God and is practicing reciprocating not just a kind man or woman. A spouse who has experienced God’s love is capable of loving another wholesomely.
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