Valentine: What love really is.🤗

Love is selfless. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love respects. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, doesn’t have a swelled head, doesn’t force itself on others, isn’t always “me first”, doesn’t fly off the handle, doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, doesn’t revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, puts up with anything, trusts God always, always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end. Love never dies (1 Corinthians 13.1-7, MSG).

Love & Relationships

Many times, people get into relationships with the mentality that the relationship will make them happy, take away their worst fears, and give them security, peace, and comfort. Well, just like 1 Corinthians 13.4 says, love does not want what it does not have. I read a post somewhere online about a lady who said her mum told her to put his (her to-be life partner) name in place of the word love while reading that chapter of the Bible, and if the attributes of love written there do not conform to his attitude, then she shouldn't settle with him. The advice sounded great, so I tried it, putting the name of the person I admire so much and thoroughly screening to check if his attributes fit in. Well, while going through it, guess who the Holy Spirit attacked? Me!😀

Love does not want what it does not have.

The Holy Spirit said to me, 'you are so quick to check if his attributes fit in. Have you checked if your attributes fit in?' I've never felt so attacked in my whole life!😂 Truth be told, it's so funny how we are quick to judge, cancel or call out people for their bad habits or annoying attitudes. We are quicker to make demands and create unrealistic standards and expectations for our 'to-be' or already spouses. We want someone who can have all the qualities of love mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13, and even more, someone to give us princess treatment, to spend the rest of their lives treating us as eggs. We get so engrossed in looking out for our spouse's flaws and faults that we barely realize that many times, we are our own problem. We demand what we don't have, we want what we can't give. Well, just so you know, if you fall in love with someone because of what you can get from that person, that is not love, that is lust. Or better put more mildly, self-centredness. Loving is giving. So to love someone is to give to that person, especially if it's something we want in return. The reason why many relationships don't last, with series of bad breakups after bad breakups and broken hearts with traumatized people is that people enter relationships for the sole purpose of getting, getting what they lack and therefore cannot give. Love is selfless. Love is a calling to give. So when you are falling in love with a person, you should be getting ready to give without holding back or counting faults.

Christ, the Ultimate Source of Love.

The only way to have a genuine kind of love, a love that gives, is to have God. God is love, and he who does not love does not know God because God is love. 1 John 4.8. Having a love that gives comes from having the understanding and walking in the knowledge of God's love for mankind. This is one beautiful purpose of singlehood that many people love to skip because they fall under the pressure of premature dating and immature relationships with no real foundation. They skip the process of self-development and understanding what love really is. Singlehood should be the period when you give your whole life and all to God to shower you with all manner of love and blessing in Heavenly places, that when your life partner meets you, he/she is not coming to complete you, but to complete God's work in your life! Love is not flowers nor roses, neither is it bouquets nor couple trips. Love is sacrificial because Christ gave Himself for us, love is interdependent because God needed man to take over and take care of all His creation while He sustains us (Genesis 1.26-28), love is responsible because God protects, provides for us, and teaches us to be responsible humans, accountable to Him and to one another, and because love does not want what it doesn't have, God wants us to love Him and other people the way He loves us; freely, overwhelming, not holding back with grudges, hatred, malice, and revenge.

What to do before Love:

Self-reflection. For all the expectations you have of your life partner, ask yourself if you are up to those standards. Even if you are not up to it yet, are you on your way there? Are you intentionally working towards being the man/woman God called you to be and the lady/guy your spec will want to spend forever with? Don't just jump into crazy lust disguised as love because of what the internet and media paints love to be. Don't forget, as children of God, and the gods that we are are, our standards are set by God's word, not the world. Love on God and love on yourself before you go demand love from another man's son or daughter. If you don't love yourself enough, no man/woman can fill that void (just so you know), and if you've not caught the revelation of God's love, just know that no one in this world can love you more than God already loves you. So, don't go pressure another man's child to do something he or she was never capable of in the first place.

So what is valentine really for?

Valentine is still a season of love (though spreading love should not be limited to only valentine🙄). Spread the love. Love on yourself, love on your friends, love on family members. Love on people who have no one else in the world, people without family. Reach out to people who lack the basic necessities of life and love on them by giving because that is what love is, giving. For all the love that comes with the season, love yourself first because the only person you will have the longest relationship with is you!