If commitment were built around feelings, even Jesus would have left you a long time ago.
Your heart starts pounding and time slows down. You watch from afar as an angel moves in a graceful dance. Sure, to others she is chewing her nails or doodling in a notebook, but to you every movement is one of perfection. You feel your stomach in knots as the butterflies circle within you. You are…in Love. Or at the very least you are convinced you are in love. In reality, you have a crush on someone you likely don’t even really know at all.
From a very early age, we all have a sense of love and the idea of love. We have a dream of love that is of mist and mountains. We watch movies about arranged marriages, and we feel bad for those who are trapped in loveless marriages. We feel bad for those prior generations that didn’t understand what love really was. We have mastered love. We are…idiots!
The only things this society has mastered better than previous societies are the big D’s: Divorce and Depression. We are unhappy about our lives and in our relationships, and I trace it all back to those butterflies. We followed butterflies right off a cliff. While those arranged marriages are still the most successful (rating not only in lowest divorce rate but also in highest satisfaction in relationships).Convinced that infatuation was a deeper form of love than dedication, we sold selfless sacrificing to buy cheap entrancement.
It is easier to feel the sparks of a first kiss. It is more obvious to have your pounding heart speak to you.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard girls (and some guys) share about needing to feel that spark to tell them they are in love, as if that is the true test of romantic desire. Aren’t the shallow things always the most obvious? It is the surface that dances before your eyes. Things of depth take longer to uncover. You have to dig deeper to find the treasures worth getting dirty for.
I love butterflies. They are beautiful and exciting, but they are brief. They fly before your eyes and are gone, and they have more to do with nervousness than romance. Butterflies are not something I would ever build my relationship on, and thank God, because I wouldn’t want someone to stay with me for butterflies. We are all human and that means we will fail, we will fall. In a TV show called ‘Til Death, one character says, “Marriage isn’t about fun, it’s more about having someone to drive you to the hospital for your operations.”
It is easy to scoff at that idea, but what kind of love would you prefer God have towards you? When I was younger, a friend pointed out to me that when the Bible talks about us as the bride of Christ it’s talking about an arranged marriage. This was hard for her because she thought of arranged marriages as loveless marriages. The truth is, love is better expressed in arranged marriages–love is better expressed in commitment. God has not abandoned us when we’ve betrayed him. When we fall and fail, he holds us. He loves us. The Bible shows that he does get angry, but it only lasts a moment because God has not built his love for us on butterflies.
Agree. The best marriages start with friendship, rather than butterflies. I married my best friend, and he’s now my husband of 28 years! :)
That’s great, Susan! We are so backwards in our understanding of love. And feelings are so fickle. Better to search for character and build a life-long love on that!
The song, “Do you Love me?” from Fiddler expresses this beautifully!
Yes, that song speaks volumes. As you said, “things of depth take longer to uncover.”