Everyone wants to be loved—that’s a given. But not everyone is loved—that’s a fact. Do you know how to give and receive love? Do you know what real love is, how love behaves, and where love is to be found? Have you experienced what love feels like, how it works, and how it can last?
How is your love life? As you look around at your relationship, which of them could be described as really “loving”? Do you know how to express love, protect love, offer love, and love on to the end?
Many times love begats love; in other words, we love and that opens the door for others to love us in return.
My father met my mother and fell deeply in love with her. He decided that if he couldn’t have my mother by his side forever, he would never marry anyone else. However, she did not respond to his advances and, in fact, rather disliked him.
My father persisted in pursuing her. “Give me a chance,” he pled. “If you will go out with me for six months, I will abide by your decision at the end.” She reluctantly agreed. So my father got to work, for “love that doesn’t work, doesn’t work!” He courted my mother with everything he had. He made the investment, not sure that his heart would be intact at the end of the day. He took the risk.
At the end of the six months he had become my mother’s constant companion and her best friend. She discovered that she could not live without him. She was irrevocably “in love.” He won her to himself through his self-giving love. They married and loved each other for thirty-eight years until his death. I’m so glad my father was willing to have his heart broken or I wouldn’t be here!
To love others no matter how they respond to you is to love as God loves.
Of course, this may not happen to everyone. But even in cases where hope has died and all seems lost, you can still put love’s principles and actions into practice. Even if your love elicits no response, you will be a healthier person for having loved. “Love never fails,” wrote the apostle Paul in 1 Cor. 13:8.
That does not mean that love never fails to get a response, but that love never fails to go on loving, whatever the reaction. This sort of love loves on in all circumstances, whether it is reciprocated, rejected, or received. To love others no matter how they respond to you is to love as God loves. After all, God loved a world full of people who hated him—loved them so much that He died for them. This is the greatest love story of all!
