Love is a Verb
Watching a Hallmark movie recently started a path of thinking about what it means to “love.”
In the movie, a romance story that included a divorced mother-daughter relationship, in the course of a one week vacation the mother went from completely stressed at home (because of her unhappy, somewhat disrespectful daughter) and work (the demand that she work long hours on boring projects) to a loved and respected Mom ready to start her own business to avoid the long hours, and, of course, a romance headed for marriage. Wow!
What was remarkable was the way that the mother spoke and showed her love for her daughter. The words “I love you” between mother and daughter were used pretty liberally on the vacation…when the daughter liked how things were going.
The divorced parents both had clearly set their priorities on their careers. Though they were divorced both showed verbal interest in their daughter’s well-being. They knew she was being slighted in the time and attention she needed to get through the young teen relationships she had in her public school.
Interestingly, it was all just words until the mother decided she needed to make a change – she acted on her love for her daughter. Love is an action verb.
This is illustrated biblically:
- Abraham responded obediently to God when He instructed him to sacrifice Isaac, trusting God with “the son whom he loved” (Genesis 22).
- Jacob served for 14 years to marry Rachel, “because of the love he had for her” (Genesis 29).
- The Lord instructed Israel to “love the strangers living among you” (Leviticus 19:34).
- And, we are told to “love our neighbors as ourselves” (Matthew 22:39).
So, how do we love ourselves? We feed ourselves when we are hungry. We bathe when we are dirty. We are discerning about with whom we are in close relationships (if we’re also wise). We avoid harmful situations. We speak truth and want to hear truth. We are thankful to the Lord for His provision and trust Him with our future.
These are actions. Words are cheap. We all love to hear someone say, “I love you” but if there is no evidence to fit their actions, so what?
Saying that we “love” someone could be used by unfaithful people in ways that are unloving. A man who tells his girlfriend that “if you love me, you will have sex with me.” The parent who thinks that neglecting his children is ok if he is bringing home a huge paycheck. Or a husband who repeatedly mistreats his wife and expects her to just keep taking it as an act of submission. These things are not loving.
The movie provoked these thoughts because it brought up this concept of our words and actions being aligned with one another. Do what we say and what we do align? Are we hypocrites or liars when we say we love God? His people? Our husbands? Our children?
Talk is cheap. The Lord says that if we love Him, we will obey His commands. This is action. If we love our children, we will not just tell them we love them, we will teach them God’s Word and His commands (Deuteronomy 6:6-9), raise them in the fear and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4), and remain faithful to the Word of God for them to see.
The movie had a happy ending for Mother and daughter (as well as the romance) because Mom stopped wringing her hands and talking about what she knew her daughter needed and instead took action to change their situation.
What situation do you and I need to change to show, rather than just state, our love for others?
