Discount Chocolate

Today is the day after Valentine’s Day and for many, it’s the real holiday. It’s the day that all of the unsold Valentine’s Day chocolate gets discounted. It’s the day that all of those heart-shaped candies make their way into mouths of chocolate lovers everywhere. This year I was quite the curmudgeon when it came to Valentine’s Day.  I just wasn’t feeling it, especially on Facebook. The sappy couples posts. The jokes about love. The inspiration quotes about true love. The jokes about singleness. The inspirational quotes about being happy with yourself. The cheesy Jesus posts (which I may or may not have participated in). I’m not quite sure why we get so excited about this holiday other than it seems like some enjoy it because it forces their significant other to put in some effort and show some sort of affection towards their relationship. See…curmudgeon.

As I was thinking about the day while sitting in my cave up in the mountains overlooking Whoville…oh wait, that’s Christmas. Anyway, as I was sitting in my office thinking about the holiday, I couldn’t help but struggle with how we fall for it. Do we really need flowers, chocolates, lingerie and cards to feel loved? And, do we really need to post our relationship on Facebook for everyone to know it?  Now maybe I’m this way because a lot has changed for me personally since last Valentine’s Day. Then again, maybe I just see things differently because of everything that has transpired.

Wednesday night I showed the Rob Bell Nooma video “Flame” to my small group. I know I’ve previously posted here about the different words in Greek for love. In the Nooma video, Bell talks about the three types of love found in the Hebrew and quotes a lot of those really uncomfortable passages from Song of Songs (please don’t ever use them for a pickup line).

Bell talks about raya love which means, friend or companion, ahava love, which refers to an emotion that leads to a commitment and dod love which refers to the sexual, physical element of love. Bell goes on to talk about how all three are supposed to be present in a relationship in order for the fire to burn brightly and to keep the flames from going out. He discusses how affairs are often based on dod love which burns brightly at first but flames out, the same could be said of the others as well.

The biggest thing about love is that it takes effort…a lot of effort. It also changes with time which many people struggle to deal with and which is why we see so many relationships crumbling. It’s the world we live in. Our society has become disposable. We upgrade as soon as we can. We replace broken things. So why wouldn’t this transfer to our relationships too?

Many of us have heard 1 Corinthians 13 recited at weddings. Verses 4-8a tells us this about love:

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. ⁸ Love never fails.

Life is difficult. Relationships are difficult. Love is difficult. Sometimes you have to walk away. Sometimes you have to give up. But let us not give up so easily and let us trust God to tell us when it’s time to go. One of my favorite quotes comes from Pastor Andy Stanley who says: “When you don’t know what to say or do, ask what love requires of you.”

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.             – 1 Corinthians 13:13.

True Love

With February rapidly approaching the thoughts of many are turning towards Valentine’s Day so I thought I’d share a few Valentine’s Day statistics with you:

-85% of all Valentine cards are bought by women.

-73% of flowers are bought by men, and only 27% are by women.

-Chocolate and candy sales reach profits of $1,011 billion during Valentines.

-Approximately one in four Americans do not celebrate the holiday at all. In addition, 15% of American women (and even men) send flowers to themselves on Valentine’s Day.

Hopefully you’re not one of the 15% who sent flowers to yourself, but from what I can tell people have a love/hate relationship with Valentine’s Day. It’s a holiday built around love, which is probably one of the most wonderful, confusing, frustrating and rewarding feelings we experience as human beings. We use the word a love great deal in a variety of ways. Some of us use it quite frequently, while others use it hardly at all.

If we look to the Bible we’ll easily see why love is so confusing to us. In the Greek there are four words to describe what we often use one word for in the English language: agápe, éros, philia and storge.

Philia is a word from the modern Greek language that simply means “friendship”. It’s the word that we’d most commonly use when we tell our friends that we love them, although a couple of other forms could be used in certain circumstances. It’s probably the most freely used as we tell someone we appreciate we love them even though the feelings are strictly platonic.

Éros, on the other hand, is the word we’d most often hear young lovers tell one another. It means “passionate love, with sensual desire and longing”. It’s the kind of love that is built more on sexual desire than what we’d consider love. It’s also the kind of love that fades the fastest once the newness of a relationship is over or the desire fades.

Storge is from both the modern and ancient Greek and means “affection”. This would probably be the form of love we would use to describe how we feel about a relative or close friend. Most likely this type of love would conjure up sentimental feelings for the other person say like for even a teacher or coach who was influential in a person’s life.

The finale form of love is agápe. This type of love is what we would consider to be “true love”. It’s love without condition freely given without expecting anything in return.

Is there any wonder why we’re so confused about the concept of love?

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 describes what agápe love is supposed to be about:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

This kind of love is the kind of love that you see glamorized in fairy tales and movies. However, in reality it can often feel like it doesn’t truly exist. The truth of the matter is that while it is rare, it does indeed exist. The problem is we often confuse ourselves with the other types of love or we too quickly settle for less than this type of love.

If you”re not currently in a relationship this Valentine’s Day, how about finding ways to express your love and appreciation for the other people in your life? Try and find ways to let them know how much they mean to you and much you care for them. Just remember, it’s okay to tell God you love Him too!