Are you loving those around you in the best, most amazing way that they could be loved? Today I’m going to share some tools on how we can love better, but first a reminder on how much emphasis there is in the Bible on the need to love each other as Jesus loves us. That is a pretty tall order and one that I think we may need some extra resources to accel at. In John, Jesus COMMANDS us to love one another.

John 13:34 Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

When a teacher of the law questioned Jesus about which law was most important, his response was: 

Mark 12:30-31 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is NO commandment greater than these.”

With this verse we can fully understand that loving others comes second ONLY to loving God with all our heart. He goes on to say that THE ENTIRE LAW IS FULFILLED by loving others well. WOW!

Galations 5:13-14 serve one another humbly in love. ¹⁴ For the ENTIRE LAW IS FULFILLED in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

One of the best resources I have found to figure out how to love others in the way they need to be loved is found in The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. Do you know what your love language is? It is equally important to know the love language of the people closest to you. If you haven’t heard of this concept before, I want to sincerely encourage you to learn more because it will have a very positive impact on your relationships when you understand how those around you receive love. Great news! You no longer have to make the commitment to actually read a book to learn more. Thanks to the web you can take a QUICK on-line quiz for FREE and get your results immediately. 

God has made each of us unique. We each have different strengths and weaknesses. We each find more value in certain things than others and this is where understanding your love language and the language of those around you can really make a positive impact on your relationships, whether they be romantic, family or friends.

Psalm 139: 13-15 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. ¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. ¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

The five love languages are organized into five simple categories: Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, and Physical Touch. I encourage you to take the quiz with your spouse, kids or closest friends. Sometimes the results seem obvious and other times not so much. Understanding how people receive love was a completely foreign concept to me before I learned about it. Before I understood this, I know my lack of understanding negatively impacted my relationships. To get personal, my love language is Acts of Service followed by an almost tie of Quality Time and Words of Affirmation. Physical Touch is low on the list and Receiving Gifts might as well not even be a category for me.

Unknowingly, most people give others what THEY would like to receive and in turn the other person gives back what THEY would like to receive. If these two people have different love languages then their efforts are largely wasted because those efforts don’t compute to love for the recipient. If a person is aware, it may even be viewed as selfishness for only giving gifts that the giver likes and not thinking of what the recipient would value. Perhaps like a stereotypical husband that buys his wife a fishing pole, wrench set, chainsaw and then ends up happily using them himself because she never uses them. The effort at buying the gift didn’t get him anywhere because it isn’t what SHE valued, it was what HE valued. Love languages can be just like this. If we are only giving what WE value, then there is no value being received. We all need to “speak” the language of those we are trying to love better.

One of the reasons I wanted to share this with you, is that I had a friendship several years ago that ended fairly abruptly and badly. My friend could never articulate what was bothering her, she just quit returning my calls/texts and eventually one day left me a box of my things and a “Dear John” letter on my doorstep. It was one of the oddest ways to end a friendship that I have ever experienced. As time passed I realized that probably one of the biggest problems in our friendship had been that our love languages were COMPLETELY different and neither of us understood that. I now know her love language was Receiving Gifts. Unfortunately, I have a history of receiving unexpected gifts VERY badly. I don’t know what it is, but I just don’t seem to be able to react with the sheer delight and surprise that people are expecting from me when they pop through the door at a completely unplanned moment with an over-the-top perfect gift for me. I’m not really happy about this quality in myself, but I can’t switch out of productive mode to grateful mode fast enough I guess. I can completely appreciate that someone went out of their way and thought about the gift just for me, but material things are just not where I find value. I don’t really care about “stuff”. If you help me with a project or take care of something so I don’t have to, this makes me feel loved. This gesture provides me with the gift of time which I can then use any way I desire, but most likely to spend quality time with someone I care about. If you are wired differently, that’s the beauty of all of us being God’s unique creations.

You can see the damage in a relationship that would be caused when someone is giving you what THEY would really like to receive and in turn you are giving back what YOU would really like to receive. In the friendship I mentioned previously, she would bring me little gifts all the time, maybe a snack, soda, or something that reminded her of me. In turn I would help her whenever she was struggling to accomplish something, set up for a party or any way I could lend a hand. I rarely bought her gifts. At that time, I was going through my divorce which were some of the most difficult days of my life. I desperately needed someone to sit with me and tell me that it was going to be okay and help me to actually believe it; instead I got a “Dear John” letter stating that my life was “too emotionally draining”.  I remembered chuckling as I read it because I could not have agreed more!!! However I wasn’t CREATING the drama, I was just trying to navigate it and not drown! This was one of the most crushing things that I have ever had to heal from, having a close confidant tell me that they absolutely could not handle walking through life with me and no longer wanted to have anything to do with me like I was a Gangrene limb and I needed to be immediately removed. After the dust settled a bit, I was able to see that this circumstance helped me understand what those closest to me need and what I desire from them.

I want to be able to love others in the best possible way and I think that is also what God has called us to do. The world today needs love so desperately, so if this is a little tool that helps us love each other well then I think it is worth learning about and exploring. I am not suggesting by any means that you have everyone you encounter take the quiz or read the book and give you a powerpoint presentation on the best ways to show them love, but I think once you get to know someone a little bit it isn’t too hard to make an educated guess about what their love language is so that you can love them better. Do they always want to talk? Are they always pulling you in for a hug (and seem completely incapable of living a life that honors social distancing)? Are they often bringing you little treasures that they thought would bring cheer to your day? Is there always an open invitation for lunch, dinner, a movie, a walk, or just ANYTHING so they can spend time with you? Are they always working and taking care of things instead of actually sitting and listening to you? These are all little clues on how you can covertly determine someone’s love language. Of course if they are game to take the quiz then go for it and love each other better. 

1 Peter 4:8 Love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.