Today’s title bout features two super heavy weights in the emotions that drive us. I wrote the following for our local paper on behalf of another organization that submits a weekly column to the paper.
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For one human being to love another that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof; the work for which all other work is but preparation.
~Rainer Maria Rilke
Love is eternal where lust is temporary. This is a plain and apparent fact as easily seen as the nose on my face, which is quite noticeable from even a great distance. The problem comes when one confuses love and lust. Often people claim to be “in love” only to “fall out of love,” but in truth they were “in lust” which is as easy to fall in to as it is to fall out of. Consider the relationship between a parent and child. This should be our basis for understanding love because it is our first experience with love. Each party must fail severely and often before love might fail. Parents who truly love their children do so regardless of the choices the child has made and regardless of how painful those choices might be. Often terrible parents are loved by their children regardless of how much it hurts for that love to not be returned. Imagine if all relationships were so pursued.
Since love will always outlast lust, the lover must take time for lust to fade so that love might grow just as a great tree must grow slowly until the weeds around it die and it can be in full sun and grow great and true; then nurture that love through respect and care. Only after those first joys of lust have passed will a couple experience true love in their relationship, the kind of love that exists beyond the hurt and pain.
It is also true that love is patient and perseveres in all things. This is why waiting for love is the only way a relationship may endure. Often a person says to another, “If you love me you will …” but the truth is that if love exists, it will be patient and forgiving. Lust demands instant gratification where love will carry through to the end. Lust is a sprinter that expends all his energy in seconds while Love is in a marathon race and she knows to keep an even pace throughout so she will not tire too quickly or stumble in the many rough places along the way.
This is why so many relationships fail, love gets confused with lust. When those feelings of joy and giddiness fade the energy of lust is spent while love is just getting started. Love must be given time to grow in the absence of lust or it will never reach its maturity. This is a difficult process because lust is passionate and intense driving a couple to spend time together where love is kind and gentle liberating a couple to their own interests. In this, individuals growing in love must overcome themselves and spend time with their love so they might experience a deeper understanding of love. If the lover were to say to the beloved, “I just do not love you anymore,” the lover is lost in confusion. The lover meant to say, “I no longer lust after you.” Love is an endless ocean and lust is a desert wash. The rain will cause the wash to overflow and rage intensely but once the water has flown into the ocean the wash cracks with the desert heat. Follow the water into the ocean and love will never run dry.
In this season of love, consider that love gives while lust takes. Take the time to seek out the gifts of love. The gifts of love are not available at the store but can only be found in time, empathy, and compassion. These true gifts thrive in love but suffocate in lust. When you look into those special eyes and say, “I love you” please do not lie to your heart.
Taking a Knee
39 Questions Your Parents Hope You Never Ask About Sex
Something that sticks.
Boys have peanuts and girls have versace
Talking bout S.E.X.
This is a great post, Nick. I like the comparisons between lust/love and really enjoyed these words:
“The gifts of love are not available at the store but can only be found in time, empathy, and compassion.”
Thanks for posting!
Thanks
First of all, the new site looks great. Second, I feel like we try to beat this into kids’ brains, but don’t push this enough with the “older, more mature crowd” as is we believe they’ve got it. They don’t. Good post!!
You are right, I see it happening all the time when we act as if people are totally grown-up and prepared for everything when they turn 30. The crazy part is that we tend to end up feeling like we must be the only ones that are flailing because everyone else is grown up and doesn’t need this. Life is ironic like that.
“Love must be given time to grow in the absence of lust…”
What a true statement….
thanks also.
Love comes from God, lust from man. And that’s why love is eternal. Great thoughts here.
thank you.
This is a good post, and a nice tie-in to your sex-inviting people to church analogy. It seems many of our churches are broken and lifeless because we only lust after temporary things and images of success rather than things that last.
Funny how that was my last entry on the blog carnival but I didn’t make the connection. You are absolutely right though.
I really like the new look of your site, Nick! I didn’t recognize it at first.
This is a great post, and so very true. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Thanks, I’m glad you like the site and the post.
“Love gives while lust takes.”
That’s become a cliche, but it’s accurate. I especially seemed to get a different meaning of it today when I read it from you.
Check out that “while” in there. Today I saw this not just as a comparison of words, but as a statement of how a relationship can actually work. Once person can love and give literally while the other lusts and takes. I guess the big realization for me today is that both can occur in a relationship at the same time.
I’m not sure you meant it quite like this, but it come off that way to me. Thank you for posting. I’m enjoying following this carnival around.
-Marshall Jones Jr.
I totally didn’t mean it like that but it is very true. Many even my subconscious is frigintastic … ok maybe not, but that is a great way of looking at it.
cool post
thank you
Have you died? Where did you go?
thanks 4 ur concern but rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. 🙂
This was a great post with a much needed message, wish I had read it when I was 17, or 19, or 27 for that matter.
I was fortunate at 17 that I was already with the person I am spending the rest of my life with, but even then I needed to hear this. We have been through so much that my 17 year old self would have never signed up for, but I would never let that 17 year old me run away even knowing what we endured.