Falling in Like all over Again - Pt 4

Excerpt: Only unconditional love can restore a breach. A love I give even if my ‘conditions’ aren’t met. God loves that way and calls me to. But I can’t love well if I feel unloved. So I need God to love like God.

Recap of 'Falling in Like' series: How to respond to your mate when your hearts begin to drift apart.
Pt 1: Reflect on the current state of your marriage. Recall what it was like when it started.  
Pt 2 + Pt 3: Recognize where you began to drift apart and journey separately. 
We will drift apart … when I only see your faults … when I lose touch with where you’re at emotionally
… when I chase after empty pursuits … when I focus on the rules of marriage instead of who I married
… when I look to you for needs only God can meet … when I no longer see or admire the good in you
… when my desires control me .. when marriage is an obligation .. when I rarely if ever think about you
Pt 4:  Resume your journey together on the road of unconditional love.
Looking Ahead:
Pt 5:  Recover your ‘likability’ through simple kindness and goodness. 

Resume your journey together
on the road of unconditional love.

“Go stand at the crossroads…Ask for directions to the old road, The tried-and-true road.
Then take it. Discover the right route for your souls.”   Jer. 6:16 (Message)

You and your God: 

In Jer 2, God recalls Israel following Him like a bride in love. Then she strayed, so He calls her to return.
In Jer 3:14, God pleads with Israel ‘Return, faithless people, declares the Lord, for I am your husband.’
In Rev. 2, Jesus says “You have left your first love… Turn back to me and do the things you did at first.”

Apathy is dangerous. In the way carbon monoxide is. You don’t know it’s affecting you until it’s too late.
I knew apathy had affected my walk with God when my ‘walk with God’ was no longer affecting me.
What do I do if I’m far from God? If I left my first love? Jesus says ‘Return and do what you did at first.’

He says ‘return’. Come home! Don’t fix yourself up first. Like the prodigal, come as you are. Just come!
He also says ‘do what you did at first’. Which was what? You felt the pull in your heart and ran to Him.
Ignoring the lie that you’re unworthy. You believed in His love for you and found it to be true. It still is!

Jer. 6:16 says ‘Ask for directions to the old road, The tried-and-true road.’ What’s the old road? It’s the road you and God were on when you were close. When life was about the journey, not the destination. 

When you wanted to know God for His sake. Not for His gifts or what He could do for you. Wanting to be near Him just because you loved Him so.  You loved Him in the same way He loves you: unconditionally.

I wish I always loved God this way. I remember how it felt to want God more than anything. When being with Him made me feel like the two travelers to Emmaus: 'Did not our hearts burn while he talked with us?" While I can’t retrieve the same feelings, I can choose what I will pursue. I can pursue God even if I don’t feel anything. But if I chase a feeling instead of God Himself, I won’t feel any closer than I do now. 

Don’t let your awareness of spiritual apathy be the reason you avoid God. Let it be a burning bush that pulls you to Him. Don’t be like Peter in Luke 5. Who seeing his sin, turned from Christ instead of to Him.

Even if you’ve lost the closeness you had with God and can’t hear Him or feel Him, there is hope!
If all you feel is an ache in your soul to be near God, that ache is an invitation!  It’s the pull of His Spirit. However faint, the desire itself is the evidence He’s drawing you to Himself. Yield to it! Draw near!

You and your Spouse:

What do you do if you lose that first love in marriage? If you no longer feel the strong love you once felt ?
‘Do what you did at first.’ Which echoes Jer 6: ‘find the old road’. The road you once walked on together.

What is the ‘old way’ we need to find? It’s not the way we felt or the way things were or things we did.
It’s the way of love. Unconditional love. A love you give regardless of whether it’s deserved or returned.
Love isn’t a feeling. It’s a choice you make many times each day. It’s a way of living. It’s the ‘way of love’.

“I will show you the most excellent way”. 1 Cor 12:30  “Follow the way of love.” 1 Cor 14:1

But how do you follow the way of love if you’ve drifted apart and feel alone even when you’re together?

If you took a detour, get back to the road you started on: the ‘way of love’. But it may not mean the way  things were at the start. Life changes us. We aren’t the same people. Starting over is hard but worth it.
Remember the goal. It’s not to retrieve old feelings or get back to ‘the good old days’. The goal is to love.

But loving each other now will look different because we are different. Our journey back to love starts
from where we are now. So if she’s more outspoken and I’m less patient, loving her won’t be easy. And loving me won’t be easy for her. A mirror helps. It reminds me she’s not the only one who’s changed!
 
If I think ‘She’s not who I fell in love with!’ and she thinks the same and all we both see are one another’s faults, how can we ever learn to like each other again, much less fall in love again? It seems impossible!

And you would be right. It is. Apart from Christ, we can’t be like Christ or love like Christ. Why? Because our heart’s focus is by nature turned inward on ourselves. It's part of being a human with a sin nature. Augustine defined sin with a Latin term ‘homo incurvatus in se’: man turned inward on himself. 

To look at my spouse through eyes of love
is to focus my attention outward on the one I love,
not inward on myself. 

The very opposite of love. A heart of love is focused outward on the one I love, not inward on myself.
To describe love in 1 Cor 13, Paul said ‘love seeks not her own’. Love is not self-centered. And this is a problem! For the kind of marriage we both want requires selfless love. And selfless is one thing I’m not.  
I want to be! I really do! But I am far too focused on my needs or wants than I am on her or her needs.  

Selfish pride can kill a marriage. If I approach our marriage issues solely focused on me and my needs, I’m being childish and selfish. Real love will never grow in that toxic soil. The only hope for rebuilding a deep friendship and rekindling first love is to make an unconditional commitment to unconditional love.

'But what about my need for love?' Look to God for what you need from people. Trust Him to work in their hearts. And convey your needs to your mate. Without any demands, ultimatums, blame or self-pity.  To rekindle first love in your marriage, love first, The chief obstacle in learning to love is looking for love. 
 
You may say “She’s not who I married!” Then I’m asking you to love the woman she is now. The ‘totally different person’ who irritates you. Why? It’s what God asks of all men. ‘Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her’. Ga 5:25. He calls me to love her with the same unconditional love He loves me with. I know it’s unconditional for I have never once met the conditions.

There is no hope for a close friendship apart from
an unconditional commitment to unconditional love.
Unconditional love never says "I love you if .. " or 'I'll love you when..” or “I'll love you as long as…”
Unconditional love simply says: I love you. And I always will. Regardless of what you do or fail to do.

To love my wife unconditionally is to love her even if she doesn’t meet my conditions or expectations.
Most grooms at the altar understand that when they say ‘I do’. What they don’t yet understand is just how often she’ll fail to meet his expectations.  Not because of a flaw in her character. But because of a flaw in his expectations. For we all bring unrealistic expectations into marriage. Which no one can meet.

While we all enter marriage with conditions or expectations, they’re not all unrealistic. It’s normal to expect honesty, acceptance, loyalty, trust and kindness. Yet even with fair expectations, it’s not possible for anyone to meet them constantly or to our liking. So why would God give us spouses who can’t meet the basic conditions needed for marriage? Maybe it’s the only way we can learn to love unconditionally.

Loving well matters more than living well. Plus we cannot fall in love again unless we learn to love again. 

The ‘perfect mate’ does not exist. You married an imperfect person who married an imperfect person. And the only way two imperfect people will ever get along much less fall in like and hopefully fall in love is to learn to love each other unconditionally. For only that kind of love can restore the love you long for.

You’ll notice in these posts that under each point, I’ve not only talked about the way spouses drift apart.
I’ve also talked about the way we stray from God. Just as you may complain that your mate doesn’t love you like they used to, isn’t it true that there have been times when God could say the same about you?
 
In your walk with God, haven’t you failed Him at times? The sin nature we all wrestle with changes us. Unless you’re perfect, you’ve changed too. We’re not always as loving or as obedient as we used to be. But have those changes in you ever changed God’s love toward you? Has God ever said “You know. I just don’t think this is going to work between us. I can’t trust you. I’m not sure you even love me. I’m done.”
 
Even if you deny Him, He won’t deny you. You may stop loving Him, He won’t stop loving you. He’s too committed to you to ever give up on you. The changes in you will never change His love for you. You can stop believing in Him. He’ll still believe in you. You can reject Him. He won’t reject you. But don’t think He’s unaffected by your rejection. It hurts Him. Deeply. Yet He loves you far too much to give up on you.
 
That is the kind of love He calls us to. ‘Love one another as I have loved you.’ Sound impossible? It is!

It takes God to love like God. 

Paul knew we need God to love like God. You see it in Phi 1:9: ‘This is my prayer: that your love will overflow more and more in knowledge and depth of insight’.  Notice he didn’t just instruct them to love each other more. He asked God to fortify their weak love. Why? Without God, no one can love like God. 

I love this prayer because he prays not only that their love will overflow more, but that it’ll “overflow in knowledge and depth of insight”. Knowledge of what? Deeper insight into what? I think it means insight
into one another. A deeper knowledge of each other’s hearts. Do you think it would change your view of your spouse if you could see them as God sees them? If you knew them in the way God knows them?

I know one thing you’d likely see in your spouse that you can’t see unless God opens your eyes to see it.
I think you’d find that they love you more than you think they do. And I think you’d find that they are far more likable than you realize. For if all you see is their faults, you can miss the beautiful heart you fell in love with. Many of the qualities that first attracted you are still there. But they’re buried under the hurt.

I think if I saw my wife the way God sees her, I would love her like He loves her. I know that I can’t make myself more loving. But God can. One way He does that is by opening my eyes to see what He sees. And then pouring His love into my heart through the Holy Spirit so that I can love her with His love. Ro. 5:5

This my prayer for you: "May God make your love increase and overflow for each other." 1 Thes 3:12

Next Post: ‘Falling in Like all over Again – Pt 5: 
Recover your ‘likability’ through simple kindness and goodness.