What is Love?

What is love? Now that’s a loaded question. How many songs have been sung, how many poems have been written, how many stories told trying to answer that question? Shakespeare wrote 154 love sonnets and may never have completely captured the definition. Do a Google search on “love” and you will get 255,000,000 results. It boggles my mind that there are 255,000,000 Web Sites out there that talk about love. Why is it so hard to define one simple four-letter word?

For some love is that butterfly sick feeling you get in your stomach. For others, it is the warm fuzzies that envelope you when you are with that special person. Even the dictionary has a little trouble defining the word. “A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness. A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.” So love is some strange feeling we get from someone or something else? I get feelings of affection when I eat chocolate cake, but I'm not about to compare my wife with cake.

The problem may be that we use the word so loosely. We love our spouse, we love our dog, and we definitely love cake and ice cream. The word love is used for everything that makes us feel giggly inside. When we tell our spouse that we love them after saying it to the cat, what are they really hearing? Perhaps it has lost its meaning because too often we use it in a selfish way. “I love you if….” “I love you when you…” When we put selfish motives behind our love, it loses much of its power.  

Maybe love is not something that can be necessarily defined by words. Words are not powerful enough to define true love. It is best defined by action. Love’s power comes when it is demonstrated to those we profess to have love for. What love does is: “Be patient and kind and not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.” (I Corinthians 13:4-7)

So, in the end love is a verb. Love is not what others do for us and how they make us feel. Love is doing what is best for someone else. Love is sacrificing, sticking with someone through tough times, and doing the things that will help them to be a better person. Love is the action you show when the butterflies leave your stomach. As the novelist Erick Segal said, "True love come, come quietly, without banners and flashing lights. If you hear the bells, get your ears checked".