Lets be honest.
The picture of ‘being in love’ that media so artfully paints is often misunderstood by the audience as ‘love’ itself. This is dangerous. No no, ‘being in love’ or ‘love’ in and of itself is certainly not bad. However, thinking that love equates to the feelings of being in love, is a major red flag.
I had a divinely weird experience one day last week, because right after I got my nerd-on with CS Lewis, I hopped into the car and got my country-on with Uncle Kracker (….that sounds strange, sorry. *And yes, I know, he’s not a country singer, but he was on country radio station, so back off).
Here are some of the lyrics from his not-so-country tune that particularly exemplifies how people–because of media–have a dangerous predisposition to equate being “in love” with “love” itself. Check out these nearly-honky-tonk vibes:
You make me smile like the sun // fall out of bed // sing like a bird // dizzy in my head // Spin like a record // crazy on a Sunday night // You make me dance like a fool // forget how to breathe // shine like gold // buzz like a bee // just the thought of you can drive me wild // oh, you make me smile.
Thanks, Uncle Kracker.
Just to emphasize once more, so that every girl doesn’t flee from me for forever (assuming that they don’t already): It’s not like the thrill of being “in love” is a bad thing; however, the danger is that we can adopt the wrong idea that being in love is all love is because that’s the only part media ever chooses to air.
An effect that this belief could have in real-life would be the following attitude: “if I am not feeling a sense of thrilling love, then I should bail because it obviously isn’t love and therefore not what I need or want”.
To think the beginnings of love’s thrill is the entirety of love is a glamorization and romanticization of something that isn’t real life. So don’t get your hopes up or expect the thrill to last for forever, only to be heartbroken when you’re “no longer happy” because your fix of thrilling-love only lasted for ~6 months. It’s not fair to each other and not realistic. In addition, it’s important to note that thrilling-love will never fully satisfy our deepest insecurities and longings, because those things can be only truly be fulfilled in God.
In this case, I especially think of the story of Jesus and the woman at the well. The woman is epitomized as one who is terribly thirsty–physically and even more so, spiritually. Right after Jesus asks her for a drink of water, he much-less-politely calls out this woman’s marriage situation. Didn’t see that coming. *Things just got uncomfortable fast, as you might imagine.* She goes on to explain how she is not really married…and then mumbles off, trying to brush off the awkwardness of it all. But Jesus goes straight to the heart of things (literally). He says, “yeah, you’re right, you’ve actually had five husbands and the man you are living with now is not your husband either” (John 4:18, ASV–Austin Standard Version).
Shocked, this woman accepted that he was a prophet. But Jesus didn’t stop there. He says something extremely profound, which translates to an incisive lesson about how we must discern media’s portrayal of ‘being in love’. He tells the woman about how He is the living water, where she will never be thirsty again.
For so long, this woman had been trying to quench the thirst of her soul’s insecurities and longings with the thrill of ‘being in love’–believing that it, in and of itself, was the promise to life’s existential salvation. But when the thrill of ‘being in love’ wore off with the first guy, she simply dropped him, found another guy, and kept going through the same cycle, hoping that each time, the thrill of the next guy’s love would outlast the last one’s. And still after 5 intimate relationships and break ups, she is currently on her 6th, still hoping for a long-term quenching that the other guys’ thrill couldn’t provide.
Maybe I am reading too much into the text, but I can’t help but think the biblical number 7–representing completion–comes into significant play here. Jesus says she will only find completion in Him. Jesus Himself IS completion. And significantly enough, He is here offering to be the 7th option of ‘soul satisfaction’ for this woman, only then being the completion for her ever-longing soul.
How many times have we tried to fill our hearts with something that only God was meant to fulfill all along? Surely more than 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 or 19365 times. But he stands the same, representing and being the ultimate source of completion.
Media wants to depict the exciting part of love and that’s it. And I can understand that. They don’t want to deal with the messy, dirty, friction that comes when two sinful people–with all their insecurities and longings–are attracted to each other. But a sinful person cannot fully satisfy another sinful person as much as a blind man can adequately lead another blind man–the help comes from outside of us.
Lets be honest and punch through the fog of fantasy thrill that media brings us in sparkly promises, and gain a broader view of what love looks like long past the initial thrill ride. Again: it’s not that the thrill is ever bad and isn’t to be enjoyed in a relationship. But we must know that JESUS is the truest sense of love, and fulfills those areas in our hearts that lovers couldn’t ever dream of fulfilling for us.
——————————————————————————————————–
Maybe some of you are wondering where CS Lewis fits into this, since I mentioned him at the beginning. Yeah, I failed at incorporating his brilliance technically in the blog, so here they are as just a plus. Mere Christianity, everyone:
“What we call ‘being in love’ is a glorious state, and, in several ways, good for us. It helps to make us generous and courageous, it opens our eyes not only to the beauty of the beloved but to all beauty, and it subordinates (especially at first) our merely animal sexuality; in that sense, love is the great conqueror of lust. No one in his senses would deny that being in love is far better than either common sensuality or cold self-centredness. But, as I said before, ‘the most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of our own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs’. Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling. Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the state called ‘being in love’ usually does not last. If the old fairy-tale ending ‘They lived happily ever after’ is taken to mean ‘They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married’, then it says what probably never was nor ever would be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships? But, of course, ceasing to be ‘in love’ need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense—love as distinct from ‘being in love’—is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be ‘in love’ with someone else. ‘Being in love’ first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.” (p. 121-122)
“People get from books the idea that if you have married the right person you may expect to go on ‘being in love’ for ever. As a result, when they find they are not, they think this proves they have made a mistake and are entitled to a change—not realising that, when they have changed, the glamour will presently go out of the new love just as it went out of the old one. In this department of life, as in every other, thrills come at the beginning and do not last. The sort of thrill a boy has at the first idea of flying will not go on when he has joined the R.A.F. and is really learning to fly. The thrill you feel on first seeing some delightful place dies away when you really go to live there. Does this mean it would be better not to learn to fly and not to live in the beautiful place? By no means. In both cases, if you go through with it, the dying away of the first thrill will be compensated for by a quieter and more lasting kind of interest. It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go—let it die away—go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow—and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life. It is because so few people understand this that you find many middle-aged men and women maundering about their lost youth, at the very age when new horizons ought to be appearing and new doors opening all round them. It is much better fun to learn to swim than to go on endlessly (and hopelessly) trying to get back the feeling you had when you first went paddling as a small boy.” (p. 123-124)
