Falling in Love

For those people still hoping to fall in love, here is some unsolicited advice: Don’t fall for it! Don’t believe for one minute that falling in love is the prerequisite to a good relationship. Many people fall in love. And out of love.  I, myself, fell in love quite a few times—and lived to tell about it! But I have only lived with one man and that happened after I married him! And he was a man with whom I was deeply in love (and still am deeply in love after 34 years—35 in April)! I firmly believe that love is a decision, not an accident—like the phrase “falling in love” implies. Some people think that falling in love is uncontrollable—it just happens. No, it doesn’t. That, my friends, is the justification of many an affair. We didn’t mean for it to happen; it just did. Poppycock! 😠

The marriage “list” that many women and men carry around in their heads (and on paper) include mostly irrelevant things, such as physical beauty (including height & weight), age, education, status (including yearly salaries), temperament, talents, skills, and things they have in common. These are all fine and good, but frankly, they are temporary and transient things. All of them. 🤨 It might be a starter list, but it is not a final list for looking for a life-long mate.

A final list is found in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. Take the time to read it now. Go ahead. I’ll wait. 🙂. . .🤔. . .🙃. . .😐. . .🖐️. . .😶 If you are looking for someone to hook your wagon to, spend your life with, grow old with, marry—look for a person who has those qualities. If he/she does not, move on.

That is not to say to look for a perfect person, but look for someone who values that list and considers that the measuring stick for him/herself. And then look at other qualities that are important to you, spend a lot of time together—a lot of time together—and ask yourself two questions: 1) does he/she make me a better person? And 2) does he/she love me as much as I love him/her? That’s it. 😀

Even so. Here is the most important thing about Paul’s great list. Before we marry, we are to look for our life partner to exhibit and pursue those attributes of love. However. However . . . once we marry, we are to cease looking for those things in our mate. Wait. 😯 What? Yeah. Once we are married, we must stop measuring our mate against this list (or any list). Why? Because the decision has been made and it is final. Our choice. Vows have been exchanged. That’s why it is important to be sure about the choice! 

So, what happens after we are married?  Now we are to become the models of the list (as we should have been all along for our mate’s sake). We are the ones to be patient and kind and not envious or boastful, not arrogant or rude, or insist on our own way or be irritable or resentful, or rejoice when things go wrong for someone but instead rejoice when things go right for the people we don’t particularly like. We are the ones whose love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”¹  And, perhaps most importantly, our “love never ends.”²  That should be us. Of course, this list is impossible to live up to! Which is why the most important thing to look for in a mate is that he/she is a child of God.  Only the Holy Spirit of Christ living inside of us can help us to love like that. And, by the way, it is best if Christ is the center of our marriage because he is the greatest example of love.

If that is true for both you and your mate—now that’s a good match! And there is nothing accidental about it! Falling in love is overrated. Looking for love and deciding that a person is someone we could believe in, hope in, endure things with, and love forever—now, that’s someone to decide to fall in love with! 😁 And it can be a wonderful life together.

¹1 Corinthians 13:7     ²1 Corinthians 13:8