Our culture has placed a huge emphasis on "being in love" ~ It's what will complete your life! It will bring ultimate happiness! It's all you need to get through hardships! It will fix everything!
It's been touted as a drug to soothe the unexpected things in life and we don't know how to cope when suddenly the feelings themselves take unforeseen turns. When the emotions and feelings stop giving a strengthening high, instead making one or both of the people involved feel sick and weakened, then what happens? The power of feeling in love was suppose to cure everything, not create challenges. The thing is that when humans are involved, imperfection is also included. Imperfection should not be something that's feared or condemned. It's a part of life on this earth. It brings learning and growth, if we're willing to not be so hard on ourselves and others.
A big problem comes when we become more interested in how the feeling of romantic love benefits us and allow it to feed selfishness. It seems that often the other person is no longer a mutual part of the relationship but a means to an end to make us feel good about ourselves.
And actually, this isn't restrained to romance. In all the connections and friendships we have, if we stop treating the other with consideration and courtesy and only look to what they can do to us, the balance is already disrupted.
Our lives are more then a first-person point of view where others are just side characters. We are to give of ourselves to those that come into our lives. Not taken advantage of by others, but give in health, kindness, and gentleness. As Ephesians 4:31-32 explains it "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you."
For Christians to claim to follow Christ and yet not be willing to sacrifice in order to encourage others is a heart-breaking thing. Life is full of suffering and hardships and we can't leech off of others to soothe our hurts. We need to actively pour out of ourselves to put aside hurt and strengthen each other towards joy.
1 Peter 4:1-2, & 8-10 urges "Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.
Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaint. As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God."
When I looked up the Greek for the 2 uses of "love" in 1 Peter 4:8, it was "keep fervent in your ἀγάπην/agapēn for one another because ἀγάπη/agapē covers a multitude of sins." Those Greek words were translated in the King James Version as "charity" which the dictionary defines as "benevolent goodwill toward or love of humanity" - benevolence is an act or deed, so it implies putting goodwill into action. In light of the obsession with the idea of being in love, often it has been made into a magical thing that just hits whether one wants it to or not and fills us for a lifetime. That doesn't really line-up with this call to keep fervent so as not to lose intensity of spirit or enthusiasm - Love takes effort, Love is a state of being.
Human nature wants to hold onto wrongs that happen in life. It's against that nature to release the grip trying to contain the wound and let Love itself heal the damage done.
When we let Love bring us into health, then we can integrate it into our way of life. It will NOT be easy - Love is a heavenly thing, as 1 John 4:7, 10, &19 details "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God ...This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins ... We love, because He first loved us." - but it is worth it. It's worth life itself ...
(I was intrigued by the cross-references for agapēn/agapē and if you want to see more verses that are use the same words check these links:
http://concordances.org/greek/agape__26.htm
http://concordances.org/greek/agape_n_26.htm)
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