I’m a sucker for musicals. I adore it when actors burst into song and dance to express their emotions. If only life were like that – free, expressive, and perfectly choreographed. One particular musical includes a high-energy number that poses several questions about love:
- How does she know that you love her?
- How do you show her you love her?
- Does he take her out dancing so that he can hold her close?
- Does he dedicate a song with words meant just for her?
It finishes with a declaration that a man who does all of those things loves you.
Love in Books
As a contemporary romance author, I write often and frequently about love. The majority of readers expect a swoon-worthy romance built on growing affection and admiration between the main characters that includes many of the above ideas. Readers want a love that conquers all. But the secret to this kind of love is not found in a feeling. It’s found in a choice to walk by the Spirit.
Love in Scripture
Those who walk by the Spirit will not gratify the desires of the flesh, which are in opposition to love (Galatians 5:16). Titus 2 commands the older women to teach the younger women to love their husbands and children. If love can be taught, then love can be learned. If love can be learned, then a decision to love can precede the feelings of love.
1 Corinthians 13 defines love with actions. That means we can choose actions that align with the fruit of the Spirit over actions that align with desires of the flesh. When we forget the power of the Spirit that lives within us, we are impatient, unkind, envious, boastful, arrogant, and prideful women that insist on our ways. When we ignore the Spirit, we become irritable, resentful, rejoicing in wrongdoing instead of truth. We are weak, without belief or hope, and defeated. Scripture indicates that we can change these actions regardless of how we feel.
The first step in loving better is to examine our lives for enmity, strife, and fits of anger and heed the warning that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God (Gal 5:21). We abhor the evil we see rooted in us and hold fast to what is good, praying the Lord transforms our actions of obedience to genuine love that outdoes others in showing honor (Romans 12:9-10).
Choosing Love
I confess I do not always do this well. Many days, my default response is to keep a record of wrong. In a novel, those records of wrong make for interesting reading (Check out The Sycamore Standoff), but in life, they illustrate our need to confess and repent. If God can take this self-centred, short-tempered woman and give me all that I need to obey, then He can enable you to choose love. And the desire or feelings will come as we walk in obedience.
If you long for the kind of joy and faith that helps you choose love amidst alarming circumstances, you’ll love the Second Edition of Glorious Surrender.
Winner of the Women’s Journey of Faith Award, Stacey Weeks invites you to travel with her through the thirteen chapters in Glorious Surrender and address the deeply-rooted fears we have as mothers, sisters, daughters, and friends. Reflection questions designed to prompt deeper thinking and personal application can be done alone or in a group. Glorious Surrender concludes with five passages of Scripture along with study questions designed to walk you through the text and apply everything you have learned about suffering, surrender, and God’s sovereignty. Some of God’s greatest blessings are hiding behind those parts of our lives that are most difficult to surrender.
