God's Love Language

Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 1:53pm

God’s Love Language
By Myron Abernathy


Words of affirmation. Quality time. Acts of service. Gift Giving. Physical touch. These are “The Five Love Languages”—the ways that each individual person shows love and prefers to be loved. I had always been intrigued by this book and had finally decided to buy it after browsing through it multiple times in various book stores (hey, that happens when you’re half-past broke and a procrastinator to boot). The author, Dr. Gary Chapman, explains throughout this popular book that each person speaks a primary love language, not unlike how each person speaks a first verbal language. A conversation between two people who do not understand each other’s primary verbal language will not go very far. The same can be said for a relationship between two people who do not understand each other’s primary love language. One can show love to another in his or her primary love language, but no matter how sincere said person’s actions are, the person on the other end will not receive that love if the love is not being done in the appropriate love language. The person that the love is intended for may very well appreciate the actions of the person attempting to show love, but will not truly feel loved. Sometimes, the actions may not even register in that person’s mind and go ignored completely. Even worse, he or she may even be offended by those actions, feeling that the significant other in question is not paying attention to or meeting his or her emotional needs.

While reading this book, I came to the conclusion that when it comes to loving someone else, we cannot just love that person in our own love language. In other words, we cannot love people on our own terms. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with showing love in the way that comes natural to us, but if we truly love someone—having that person’s interests in mind—we will cater to the way that that person prefers to be loved. Many times we may say that we “feel” as if we love someone. That’s all well and good, but what good is that “feeling” if the person who is supposedly being loved does not feel it as well? The “loved” person will only feel that love if it is given in his or her primary love language. The many examples shown in the book reveal that, unfortunately, sincerity in one’s attempts to love is not enough. Dr. Chapman shared several stories of married couples who did their best to love each other, but they were only doing so in ways that came natural to them, or in ways that they wanted to be loved themselves. Once those couples realized that they had not been adapting to each other’s needs, they were able to turn things around for the better.

I had an interesting thought one day as I was reflecting on what I had learned. Many of us who claim to be Christians say that we love God. We love God with all our hearts, minds, and souls. We love us some Jesus. I had to wonder though, how many of us really know what it means to love God? It’s obviously not just a statement, nor is it just a feeling (or, at least it shouldn’t be). Knowing that we can’t love people any way that we choose, I would assume that the same can be said for God. So, one might ask, how does God want to be loved? What is God’s love language? Discovering God’s love language is not difficult, but it may require some effort in digging through the scriptures. There are several scriptures in the Bible that plainly tell what makes God feel loved by us, but one scripture that makes it plain is John 14:15-23. It is revealed several times in this passage that God’s “love language” is obedience. To love God is to obey him. Sounds easy, right? How I wish that were so. Anyone reading this who has made any attempt in following God’s commands knows that it’s not the easiest thing in the world to do. God commands several things of us that go against what comes natural to us or our society’s culture would tell us to do.

One might think, “Well, there are other ways that we can show God love, right? Singing to him? Praising him? Preaching his word? Sacrificing for him?” While all those things are good and probably fall somewhere under the umbrella of obeying him, God takes this obedience thing very seriously. Let’s take a look at someone who had this idea, but discovered the truth the hard way. 1 Samuel 15 tells the story of Saul during his reign as king. In verses 1-3, God commands Saul to kill the Amalekites and destroy them completely, leaving no one or no thing alive. Seems kind of harsh, to say the least. At any rate, that is what God commanded of him. However, verses 7-9 reveal that Saul only partially obeyed God. He took the Amalekite’s king alive, but still killed the rest of the people. Instead of killing every animal as God commanded, he declined to kill the best of the livestock, and killed the rest. The scriptures do not specifically explain why Saul disobeyed God in this way. We get a small hint in verse 15, which shows that Saul saved the best of the animals to sacrifice to God, which, in and of itself, wasn’t a bad thing, but it still was not what God had commanded (verses 22-23 clearly show that God would take obedience over sacrifices any day). Maybe he was just saying this to save face and did not really intend to sacrifice the spared animals. Maybe he felt like he had a better plan than God. Maybe God’s plan seemed illogical or irrational to him. Maybe he was just feeling rebellious. Or maybe he just didn’t think that following his instructions to the letter was that big of a deal. We’ll never truly know, but the fact remains that he did not obey God, and God was surely not pleased with him. As we see in verse 26, God rejected Saul as king of Israel because of his lack of obedience. Saul’s actions and reaction to his punishment from God reminded me of one of the examples that Dr. Chapman illustrated in one of the chapters of his book. We see a husband who thought he was doing everything right: working hard, paying the bills and taking care of all of his husbandly responsibilities (not that this was a bad thing). However, he did this at the expense of spending quality time with his wife. While his wife probably appreciated not having to worry about having a slacker for a husband, what she wanted more than anything was for her husband to give her his undivided attention; for him to talk with her and do things with her from time to time, even if it was only once or twice a week. I can imagine that this is how God feels when we love him based on our own ideas, instead of just obeying his commands.

As I was searching for scriptures that would reveal God’s love language, I came across 1 John 5:3. This scripture again shows that love for God is obeying his commands. However, the last sentence of verse 3 caught my attention. It says that his commands are not burdensome. I’m sure I’m not the only one, but this statement made me stop and think for more than a minute. God says that his commands are not a burden to us, yet many of us, myself included, have a hard time obeying him. If his commands are not burdensome, why do we find it difficult to be humble when we feel like being prideful? Why are we selfish when we should be selfless? I could go on and on about the commands that God gives us that seem to weigh us down with guilt and restriction. I shared this scripture during a Bible discussion recently, and the feedback I got gave me a better understanding of what this scripture really means. One way of looking at it is that God knows so much better than we do. Isaiah 55:8 states that God’s thoughts are not ours and neither are his ways our ways. If God created us, we can rest assured that if he tells us to do or not do something, it is for our own good. I’m sure we could all find plenty of God’s commands that keep us out of harm’s way if we choose to obey them. On another note, a friend of mine shared at the Bible discussion about an ex-roommate who is now married. Her roommate was never a professional wrestling fan; however, her husband-to-be was a huge pro wrestling fan. While they were dating, she would watch wrestling events with him, and eventually grew to like wrestling. My friend who shared this expressed that she did not understand how her roommate could go from one extreme to another. I myself was surprised, as I’ve watched several UFC events at that couple’s (now married) house, and would never have known that she had ever been anything less than a wrestling or mixed martial arts fan.

This story brought me to two conclusions. First, when you do things out of love for someone, you may not like doing it. However, as you do it more and more, you may begin to tolerate or even love doing it. I then realized that it is the same thing with God. There were many commands that I did not agree with before, but after denying myself and following them, if I did not come to love them altogether, I at least understood the why’s and benefits of obeying those commands; being the spiritual leader in a relationship and saving myself for marriage are just a couple of those commands. Secondly, I realized that love will make you do some crazy (sometimes stupid) things. Okay, maybe I didn’t have to read this scripture or hear that story to come to that conclusion, but it makes more sense to me now. My friend thought her roommate was crazy to spend time watching WWF all night, but she did it because she loved her significant other. When you love someone (especially when you’re “in love” with someone), you do things that you wouldn’t normally do. You do things that aren’t necessarily rational. You do things that other (sane) people around you wouldn’t even give a second thought to doing. The things that you do for someone that you love, which would normally be a huge burden for you, cease to be a burden. In this regard, God’s commands are not burdensome. When we truly love God, nothing he commands us to do will feel like a burden to us. With that said, if we find one of God’s commands burdensome, we must ask ourselves, “Do I really love God?” Don’t get me wrong; I’m preaching to myself as I write this (to myself more than anyone, actually). If anyone has a hard time looking at God’s commands as if they are not burdensome, he or she only needs to look to the example of Jesus. The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all show what Jesus did for love. Jesus obeyed God’s plan out of love for him, and also obeyed God’s plan out of love for us, despite knowing ahead of time that the vast majority of us would not accept him. Considering all that he went through in the process of obeying God, the argument could be made that Jesus was crazy. Seriously, who would willingly lower himself from Heaven, knowing it would lead to the most lengthy, painful, agonizing death one could receive? I think this just shows how deep his love for God and for us went. Yes indeed… love will make you do some crazy things.

So, after reading “The Five Love Languages,” I not only got a better understanding of how to love those around me, how to love my future girlfriend and eventually my wife (I wonder if she’s reading this, whoever she ends up being…), I also have a better understanding what it means to truly love God. In both regards, I have a lot of work to do!