June 26, 2022,
Dear Grandchildren:
I’ve been talking to Devin and Ryley concerning their wedding in July. I asked them, “Is love a feeling or a decision?”
How would you answer this question?
It was June 1967—still early in the so-called “summer of love,” when the Beatles unveiled their new song, “All You Need Is Love” to four hundred million people in twenty-five countries as part of the world’s first live global television event.
The Beatles wanted to do more than just sing a pretty song. They wanted to make a statement and possibly change the world. As a Christian rocker Larry Norman would later observe: “The Beatles said All You Need Is Love, and then they broke up.”
What is love? The answer depends on where you look. When you answer the question based on pop songs and romance poetry, feelings and “chemistry” reign supreme.
Others insist love is more of a decision than chemistry. Renowned psychoanalyst and social philosopher Erich Fromm promoted this idea in his 1956 book, The Art of Loving. He said, “Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go. How can I judge it will stay forever, when my act does not involve judgment and decision.”
Love is a decision you make and continue to make to create an experience that’s described as love. Love is something you feel and something you do as a decision.
Yes, love is a feeling, perhaps one of the most powerful and enjoyable feelings we can experience. Love is such a powerful feeling that it impacts all our other feelings. When you feel loved, your entire world looks better.
Feelings are essential to love, but feelings alone are not strong enough to sustain a healthy and stable marriage through the challenges in life.
Many people think love is something that happens between two people, but that’s only part of the story. Love is a much bigger story. It’s an older story too. Love has been around for a very long time. In fact, love existed before people did, before God created the world.
Christians have a unique opportunity to experience love because they are connected to the primary source: God is the creator of love and He is love.
John was the disciple of love. He frequently wrote about the subject and was described as the disciple Jesus loved (John 13:23). In his first epistle, John explains that love is the foundation of our relationship with God.
According to the Bible, love is more than a feeling or a decision. It’s a free-flowing gift you receive and give. It starts when you open your heart to God and accept His love. It continues when you open your heart to the people around you and let that divine love flow through you to them. Thus, when you love someone, it’s not your love you feel and share, but it’s God’s love.
Fifty years ago, Grandma and I opened our hearts to Him and received His unconditional love. When we did that, even though we didn’t realize it at the time, we could “really” start loving each other and others. Marriages based on this foundation can grow and flourish, because this is how God designed it all to work.
The bottom line is when we open our hearts to God, we open our hearts to real love. This is my hope for each of you as you grow in His love.
Always realize how much I love you,
Grandpa