Love: Feelings and Choices

The second law of thermodynamic implies (with apologies to scientists for a crude layman’s definition): that any closed system left to itself tends towards greater randomness. That is, it tends to break down, unless energy is inserted into the system to create order. Whilst this law was intended to describe physical systems such as a chemical reaction in a test tube, I believe it applies to other realities. Our garden at home illustrates it well. If we leave our garden to its own devices, there’s no way it will remain ordered. In no time, the leaves fall, the plants wither, the weeds grow, the edges of the garden bed disappear. A beautiful thing is spoilt through neglect. To maintain the order of our garden energy has to be spent.

This applies to human systems as well. I get the sense that a lot of people assume that as long as they do nothing destructive or detrimental, that their friendships and relationships will simply look after themselves.

That’s just not the case!

I often say to couples when I conduct weddings, as they look dreamily into one another’s eyes, I have no doubt that during and after their honeymoon, the two of them will have no problems communicating and relating to one another. But to remember that becoming immersed once again in mundane life, as the days roll into weeks and the weeks become years and decades, loving one another may become something that needs to work at in a disciplined and systematic way.

And that shocks them. 'Surely if we’re in love,' they think, 'things will always just happen naturally, it will be spontaneous.' Well some couples are blessed with a natural inclination to relate easily, but not all. Good communication, caring action, attentive understanding are skills, like any others, which develop with time and practice. Some couples need to learn to garden, some need to learn to budget, some couples need to learn to communicate, others need to learn to love one another. It requires work and effort.

A man who had been happily married for 40 years once said, "It's easy to look for love outside your marriage and think that the grass is always greener of the other side of the fence. Actually, the grass is greenest where you water it."

All this implies that love is not so much a feeling as a choice. Bearing one another in agape (one of the words translated 'love' from the New Testament). William Barclay defines that type of love in these terms: it means that nothing another person can do will make us seek anything but their highest good. That of course means that Christian love, agape, is not a feeling. If Christian love means loving those who are not lovely, then it must be more than a feeling. It is a resolution, a decision. Don Francisco penned it well:

“Jesus didn’t die for you because it was fun.
He hung there for love because it had to be done.
And in spite of the anguish, his word was fulfilled.
For love is not a feeling it is an act of your will.”