I knew it!!

Like I said in a previous post, I've been reading Joshua Harris' "I Kissed Dating Goodbye." There's some good stuff in that book. While Gracie naps in the afternoon, I get the chance to read a little, and this is what I ran across today...

"The world tells us that love is beyond our control. This thinking has found its way into our language. We describe the beginning of a passionate love relationship as 'falling in love.' Or people say, 'We're madly in love with each other.' You've more than likely heard people say these things -- perhaps you've even said them yourself.

Why do we feel compelled to compare love to a pit or a mental disorder? What do these statements reveal about our attitudes toward love? I think we make these somewhat overstated analogies because they remove personal responsibility. If a person falls into a pit, what can she do about it? If an animal contracts rabies and runs around foaming at the mouth and biting people, it can't really help its nasty behavior because it has gone mad.

Does it sound a little absurd to discuss love in such terms? I think so. Yet we tend to express our experience of love in these ways. We think of love as something beyond our control and thus excuse ourselves from having to behave responsibly. In extreme cases, people have blamed love for immorality, murder, rape, and many other sins. Okay, so maybe you and I haven't done those things. But perhaps you've lied to parents or friends because of a relationship. Maybe you pushed your partner too far physically. But if love is out of our control, we can't possibly be held responsible. Yes, we know we behaved rashly. Yes, we know we might have hurt others in the process, but we couldn't help it. We were in love." (pp. 63-63, "Looking up 'Love' in God's Dictionary")

When I read this, I thought to myself, Bingo! Someone else agrees with me! Love is not some mushy feeling, but a deliberate action. Mushy feelings are great, but they don't hold -- they're more like icing on a cake. (Coming from a former cake decorator: the icing does not hold the cake together.)

For example: why do you love a certain person?

Some of us might say, "Well, I happen to be related to this person... do I have any choice?" Yes and no. I love my family, but do we always get along? Absolutely not. There are times when I can't stand my family, but I love them just the same. More often than not, I have to make a conscious decision to show my love for them -- even when I don't feel like it.

Why do I love my friends? Is it because they're such wonderfully perfect people? While, yes, I think my friends are wonderful, I love them because Jesus loved them first. Jesus shows His love to my friends through me (when I am willing to be used).

So is love an accident or conscious decision? Most of the time, I think it is a conscious decision, but certainly never an accident. Sometimes God causes us to love people when we don't even understand why. I vouch for The Ping Moment. (A few of you might understand what I'm talking about, but the rest of you... I'm afraid I cannot describe it in words. You shall have to find out about The Ping for yourself someday.)

I once told a friend that I had "fallen" for someone, but after reading just a few chapters in "I Kissed Dating Goodbye," I realized how erroneous this term was. I did not "fall in love." If I could re-word that, I would say, "God decided to strike me for some odd reason, and ever since then I have had to make conscious (and unconscious) decisions to love that person." That is The Ping -- God strikes you and a light bulb suddenly appears above your head. You can't turn it off even if you want to. Lovely, eh?