A lot of us have read Gary Chapman’s book, The Five Love Languages. It’s an excellent book and I highly recommend it. For those of you who don’t know the book, here’s the gist.
Everybody’s got their own love language: physical touch, words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts or quality time. The idea is that you and your spouse/kids/parents/whoever you’re trying to love probably have different love languages. You may feel loved when you hear words of affirmation. Your spouse may feel loved from acts of service. You’ll naturally try to speak your native language to them, thinking that you’re loving them well because that’s how YOU are loved well. But if you’re not speaking THEIR language, they could still feel unloved, even if you’re working really hard (in your own language) to show them affection.
You could shower your spouse with words of affirmation, pour out your heart in love letters and verbal encouragement and it would probably be slightly appreciated. But if you unloaded the dishwasher or took the trash out, his/her heart would soar. Not wrong, just different. So the idea is to learn the other person’s love language and speak it to them and THAT’S how they’ll feel loved. You have to do it THEIR way or it won’t work.
I was thinking the other day about God’s love language. How can I best show Him that I love Him? I can’t physically touch Him, so a big hug is out (for now anyway). I could tell Him how great He is all the time, which would be a great reminder for ME, but I’m pretty sure He already knows. Can’t really give Him anything. It’s all already His. I would imagine quality time and acts of service probably mean a lot to Him. Those things sound pretty doable.
But then I remembered a couple of terribly annoying and inconvenient Bible verses:
If you love Me, keep My commands. (John 14:15)
Whoever has My commands and keeps them is the one who loves Me. (John 14:21)
And this one is the worst:
Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. (1 Samuel 15:22)
GYAH. Obedience? That is NOT one of Gary’s choices. I mean, I guess you could try to wiggle it into acts of service if you wanted to. But obedience, keeping His commands. No, that’s on another level. That’s the hardest love language ever.
I don’t WANT to speak God’s love language. I want to speak MINE to Him. Or at least one of the five humanly doable options.
Oh, how often I try.
Me: God, look! Look what I’ve done for You!
God: That’s nice. But I didn’t ask you to do that.
Me: But I did! Don’t You feel loved and honored?
God: I know you mean well, Child. But why don’t you just do what I say?
Me (grumbling to myself): Because it’s too hard and it wasn’t MY idea.
God: I heard that.
Me: Crap.
I will wear myself out trying to please God. I make it so complicated.
Me: What does He WANT? What does He WANT from me? Maybe I’ll try this. Or this. Or this.
God: Child, you know what I want. I’ve given you the answer.
Me (whining): But I don’t like that answer. It’s too hard.
God: I have given you everything you need. My Holy Spirit is in you and will help you. And you won’t do it perfectly. But I want a surrendered heart.
Immediately after college, I enjoyed a period of unprecedented closeness with God. I did mean well (can we just put that on my tombstone?) but looking back now, I was just so, well, YOUNG.
I fully grasped that obedience was God’s love language. So I decided to scour the Bible for any and all commands that I could keep to try to prove my love for Him. Oh, heart in the right place, brain in La-La Land.
There was one tiny flaw in my perfect plan: I wasn’t perfect. I couldn’t do it.
I redoubled my efforts for a while before I finally gave up in frustration and exhaustion. I felt like a failure. I loved God so much but because of this stupid body of death, I could not show Him.
I plodded on, disappointed and embarrassed. It would be another ten years before I would fully experience the life-altering, literally unconditional love and grace of my Savior and King. But prior to that (and even sometimes since), my closeness with God was mostly dependent on my level of energy and inspiration at any given moment.
God’s love language is obedience. But I don’t think He means for us to seek out every command He has ever given and try, try, try to obey it all. I think it looks more like walking with Him every day and when opportunities to obey present themselves, we choose His way. One tiny choice at a time. And He said that the more we walk together, the more His way and my way will begin to look alike. Oh, let it be so, Lord.
Because the real truth is He can’t love us any more than He already does. Let me repeat that, for myself, if not for anybody else: He can’t love me any more than He already does.
I say that because I’ve got some serious inner Pharisee issues. Sometimes expressing my love to God through obedience can become trying to EARN God’s love through obedience and I won’t even know it. The line is so fine that one day I’ll end up grumpy and worn out and feeling far from God and have no idea why. It’ll take me a little while, but I’ll eventually realize I did it again. It was about God, but I made it about me. It was my love letter to God and then it became a contract. A contract that I made, that I broke. Dang it.
The good news is, God speaks all five love languages with perfect fluency. He gives lavish gifts to His children. Scripture is full of His words of affirmation. Jesus’ whole ministry was one continuous act of service. Quality time is so valuable to Him that He has made Himself available to us 24 hours a day, whenever we want Him. Physical touch is a little trickier. But there have been times when I have been mid-hug with a friend, mid-leaning on my husband, mid-snuggle with one of my kids and have felt God’s touch. And someday when I get Home and finally get in His arms, I might never let Him go.
Most relationships flounder when one person is doing all the work. Not so in our relationship with God. He has done, is doing and will always do all the work. All we have to do is receive it.
And sometimes that is the hardest part. But once we get it, it will change everything. Because then our obedience will flow from our salvation, not in exchange for salvation. That’s the whole point. That’s the gospel.
Because of our inability to obey perfectly, Jesus paid our wages of sin through dying on the cross. And because that debt is paid in full for all time, we obey out of love and thankfulness for our salvation, not to earn it. Salvation is followed by obedience, not the other way around. Because after we embrace Christ’s sacrifice, we are filled with the Holy Spirit who gives us the ability to obey.
God set us up to win, everybody. It was never, “Obey Me enough and I’ll let you into My heaven,” as so many think. If our eternal destiny were based on our good works, we’d all be screwed. It was only ever always, “They can’t do it and because I love them, I’ll have to provide a way to bring them Home. And then, once they believe Me for it, I will provide a way for them to obey.”
He decided before even speaking the world into existence that He would do all the work: Pay the penalty for our sins, provide the way to spend eternity with Him, then give us the means to obey Him through the Holy Spirit. Sorry, my fellow Pharisees, it has very little do to with us. We have one small move to make: The choice to believe.
And this obedience, it’s not a bunch of random rules set up by a controlling egomaniac to make us prove ourselves to Him. What He asks of us is FOR OUR GOOD, because He loves us. Are you starting to see a theme here?
That was really for me, y’all. I’ve been a follower of Christ for as long as I can remember, but I still regularly have to review how it works and preach the gospel to myself. And when I do, I am always shaken by its scandalous beauty.
So as you pursue your spouse, your kids, your parents, your friends in their love language this Valentine’s weekend, bask in God’s wild love that has nothing to do with you holding up your end of the deal, and everything to do with Him doing it all. Let this crazy love fill you and spill out onto your loved ones.
Then turn around and love Him back. In HIS love language.
