" More Than a Feelin' "

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More Than a Feelin’

... may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. (Proverbs 5:18)

Love stories can be very entertaining – think Korean dramas and movies like Ghost.

The traditional ones are formulaic: girl meets boy; they fall in love; get married; and live happily ever after. Usually in between courtship, they face difficulty and will breakup. But only to find themselves back together again – the motif of tension and resolution is evident in every sit-com and romance movie, and usually in the space of a half-hour or two-hour format, respectively.

However, the overarching narrative which binds the couple together like superglue in these movies and dramas do not change: strong feelings of attraction. Is love just that, a feeling, an emotion?

Sometimes, we come across “family” dramas where a divorce is happening. And the kids ask why as a matter of course, and are told that mummy and daddy no longer have feelings for each other. Perhaps they now have feelings for someone else. This sort of behaviour perpetuates our understanding that love is an emotion/feeling that can be transient; we will stay together as a couple for as long as the attraction and feelings last.

But this is not the sort of love that God the Father has for us. His sublime love for us is constant and unchanging, and His greatest demonstration of that is culminated in the death of His Son, Jesus Christ, for us (“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13). God the Son, gave His life for us. He said, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10:45

He had to die for us so that we can be washed clean of our sins in order to be reconciled to God. Because of our sins we are separated from God and are under His rightful judgement. The good news of Jesus Christ is presented here.

Coming back to human relationships. The attraction for our spouses may wax and wane but we can still love them consistently, because love is more than a feelin’, it is a promise we made to love and cherish them that we keep on keeping. And although we can be sinful, prickly and unlovable creatures, we will still strive to love others because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). These thoughts were the inspiration behind the song, “More than a feelin’ ”.

Youth and beauty do not last and our promise to love our spouses should not be predicated on them. The Bible (Proverbs 5:18) tells us to “rejoice in the wife of (our) youth”. It does not tell us to rejoice in our youthful or youthful-looking wife or husband.