For More Selfless Love
Love is a more of a circular experience than a one-way street. It is shared between people, not just from one person to another. There are plenty of situations where love is one-sided. But can you think of any of those that end positively? Are there any that are fulfilling or satisfying? With the exception of God’s love for us, which often times is one-sided, love only works when it is shared.
One of the best ways to understand love is to understand how someone receives love. Gary Chapman’s Five Love Languages is a great way to start understanding how to love someone. His book is meant for couples, but it can be used in any relationship built around love (i.e. anything meaningful and lasting).
The five love languages are Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Physical Touch, Receiving Gifts, and Quality Time. There is a test that Chapman provides that helps you determine what your own love languages might be. But we need to always be thinking about how to love someone else.
Why should you put forth any effort to love someone if you’re not sure they will even love you back? Because everyone needs relationship and community. Because every relationship fails without love.
People feed off of love. It is something that spurs them on and keeps them going. It comforts and heals. It protects and defends. Each person has an emotional appetite that needs to be satisfied. This is filled by receiving the emotional energy of others. I’m not talking in some kind of mystical language here. Everybody feels drained when they have had a very emotional day. This is the energy I am talking about and it is vital for a full life.
So if people live off of this appetite of love, what happens when they are not loved? They try to fill their appetite somewhere else. They pursue unhealthy relationships in the hope that it will make them feel better and fill their emotional stomach. They attack others, acting like cannibals of others’ emotional energy.
The better way is to look for ways to love those around you. Look for the ways that they try to show love (think of the five love languages). This is often how they prefer to receive it. Do little things and see how they respond to them. Did spending a few minutes with all of your attention on them make them happy? They might be a quality time kind of person. Do they talk about how they love getting hugs or holding hands? Physical touch might be their cup of tea.
People who love you will notice your effort and try to love you back. Not everyone, but most who actually care will try. Tell them about how you like to receive love so they can love you best. They will want to know and just telling them, instead of making them figure it out, is a much kinder way to love.
The bottom line is this: love those around you. Love them as yourself (Matt. 22:39), just in the way that they want to be loved.
Check out David Chapman's Five Love Languages here: