My Christian Answers

“He who knows nothing loves nothing. He who can do nothing understands nothing. He who understands nothing is worthless. But he who understands also loves, notices, sees….The more knowledge is inherent in a thing, the greater the love….Anyone who imagines that all fruits ripen at the same time as the strawberries knows nothing about grapes.” Paracelsus

The question here is what do you know about love? Are you as one who knows nothing and is therefore worthless? He who knows nothing knoweth not that he knoweth nothing…

Is love a feeling? Are the senses the determiner of love or the mind? Is love a work? The ideas here in this first part are in a large part taken from Erich Fromm’s work ” The Art of Loving.” Whether he knew Christ in a personal relationship or not, one cannot be certain but he did have a conservative and moral thought pattern. He understood the Scriptures and uses it quite frequently in this book. His work on love should go down in history as one of the most comprehensive books on the subject. His thoughts have been priceless to the problem of love. With this laid down we will continue to try and understand this thing we call love. Fromm states that first of all there are several faulty premises which most people have concerning the problem of love.

1. “Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved, rather than that of loving, of one’s capacity to love.” Therefore the action they take is how to be the object of love. How can they become lovable? Men try and become strong, successful, rich, influential. Men figure that if they can be someone, have an identity of power, they will succeed in gaining love. Women on the other hand seek to become attractive. Now men do that as well in todays society due to the unisex push. They wish to be an object of beauty, something the other sex will seek after. Attention becomes affection, and many times it is but at the same time affection does not always equal love. Attractive is the key. ” As a matter of fact, what most people in our culture mean by being lovable is essentially, a mixture between being popular and having sex appeal.”

2. “…the problem of love is the problem of an object, not the problem of faculty.” Fromm here explains mans warped view of love in that people now are more concerned with the importance of the object of love rather than the function.” In past cultures, that have been that way for millenia, a prearranged marriage was the norm. Matchmakers were involved, parents, social considerations, with little respect to the feelings of the couple to be joined together. Love was supposed to develop afterward not before. In our capitalistic culture we are consumed with the (consumer effect). We want to get the best quality for our money at the least possible cost. We are looking for an attractive package. “For the man an attractive girl - and for the woman an attractive man - are the prizes they are after. ‘Attractive’ usually means a nice package of qualities which are popular and sought after on the personality market.”

3. The third problem lies here…”in the confusion between the initial experience of falling in love, and the permanent state of being in love, or as we might say, of ’standing’ in love. If two people who have been strangers, as all of us are, suddenly let the wall between them break down, and feel close, feel one, this moment of oneness is one of the most exhilarating, most exciting experiences in life.” Those who have been shut off from love experience this excitement twofold. The power of sudden intimacy is many times consummated and or caused by sexual action. This can add even more to the heightened sense of ecstasy. However this type of closeness is at best short lived. It has not the fundamental seed by which to stand on. Instead it is like a beautiful cut rose, in all its glory, velvet to the touch, nectar to the nose, dead and brittle by the next week. The individuals involved become then better acquainted with the thorny side. As in the rose, once the petals fall all that is left is the thorns. ” The two persons become well acquainted, their intimacy loses more and more its miraculous character, until their antagonism, their disappointments, their mutual boredom kill whatever is left of the initial excitement. Yet in the beginning they do not know all this: in fact, they take the intensity of the infatuation, this being ‘crazy’ about each other, for proof of the intensity of their love, while it may only prove the degree of their preceding loneliness.”

There are two questions in every marriage. And I don’t mean why does my wife nag so much, or why is my husband so clueless. I am talking about the root problems that cause many if not all of those little problems. I read a post called “2 questions” very recently. It was describing two questions that people ask: “Can I do it?” and “Am I worth it?”. His article states that the question that drives a man to do just about anything is “Can I do it?”. The question that drives the woman is “Am I worth it?”. To go into the details of his article read it here. I will briefly summarize.

“Can I do it?”

Man’s obsession in life is what can I conquer or accomplish. We often pride ourselves in our working ability, sporting ability, and whatever else we might be good at. A man values himself by those things.

“Am I worth it?”

Most women want to know one thing in a relationship, that is that they are loved above all else. She wants to know that the man in her life loves her, appreciates her, and cares for her.

I think many affairs could be avoided by answering these two questions the right way. If a man can’t do something well enough at home he may try somewhere else. Same with a woman, if she does not feel loved at home she may accept love from someone who lets her know how important she is. Of course, sometimes this never leads to adultery, sometimes it just leads to unhappy relationships. Remember men, putting anything in this world above your wife is telling her that she is not worth it.

“Two answers from the word of God”

So we have two questions. If every man and woman does in fact ask these questions, then surly they are important enough to have answers in the word of God. Ephesians 5:22-33 speaks about the husband and wife. The first command to the husband and the first to the wife answer the two root questions. Men love your wives; women submit to your husbands.

Love today is not like the love in the Bible. What most people call love today is actually passion, or infatuation. Love in the KJV Bible is often translated charity. Back then love was not passion but action. Love requires doing something. It says that men should love their wives as Christ loves the church. If you look at the things that Christ does for the church it makes our so called “love” look childish. So what actions are included in love? To be honest I don’t know everything that God intended us to do, but I do know this: More than one time in the Bible God says he loves us therefore he GAVE. So one thing I can say is that we as husbands should give, our time, our effort, our affection, and whatever else it takes to show our wives that they are more important to us than anything (except God). Do this and you will always be telling her she is worth it.

Submitting to a husband sounds like a dirty phrase in today’s world. A world where a woman is running for president. But, it is not as bad as you think. The Bible says the wife is like the church in her relationship with her husband, who is a representation of Christ. The church is not forced to submit to Christ, but chooses to submit themselves because of his love for them. Christ provides everything for the church therefore the church has no reason not to submit. If you submit to your husbands you are not obeying him, but following him. Submitting to your husband is just showing him that you trust his guidance. Showing him that, you are telling him that you think he can do anything, therefore, you are not worried when you follow him. Wives please show your husbands that they are your personal “superman” and that you would follow them anywhere.

“Final Thoughts”

The Bible does not give us the option based on what our spouse does. If your wife does not support you, you still love her. If your husband does not love you, you still have to follow him. Based on the word of God, I feel very comfortable in telling you that if you do your part, your husband or wife will 99% of the time start to do their part.

Has someone recently done or said something to hurt you? Maybe you went into work or came home and someone who you care about launched into you with a torrent of hurtful accusations and verbal barbs. Maybe you did something to bring on the attack or maybe you are completely innocent, either way the pain has been awakened deep down in you emotions perhaps even as deep as your soul. You can feel all over again as you read this, that icy grip that encloses itself around your throat, the tingles that flows through your body, the spiked beating of your heart, and the ensuing sweat that breaks out all over your body. This is emotional pain that can bring one to the brink of sanity. Has any of this been a part of your life recently? Perhaps in the distant past, regardless you probably have felt this pain, this friend that may come back to bestow his “loving” arms around you and squeeze you till your joy morphs into a thing that was never born. Call it what you will, this is hurtful and we have all at one time or another felt it. The question then becomes, what do you do or not do when this is the case in your life. Let’s deal with the fact that you were the one who was completely in the wrong and the other individual is angry and disappointed in you.

A. Breathe - this is important because breathing will help regulate your heart beat and the sensations that are coursing through your body. You will feel like doing one of two things, running or fighting. This is the fight/flight mechanism that God has given to you for your survival. It is employed throughout your system when your mind has reason to be afraid or angry, such as in a mugging or car accident. This mechanism can save lives but in some cases it can be detrimental to the individual who is employing it. Though you will want to one or the other, you will do NEITHER. You will Breathe.

B. Accept - this is what you will do, don’t fight back and don’t run away, accept that you are wrong. Let the feelings that will come with that decision course through your body, EMBRACE the sensations! Do nothing just embrace. Agree and Accept.

C. Look and Listen - do not avert your eyes, let you eyes do the talking. Let the other person vent, do the right thing - do not retaliate and do not run.

D. Answer - respond after a time, which you will have to decide depending on each situation it will be different, with a measured, calm response. “A soft answer turneth away wrath” is a proverb greatly used and completely true. Tell the truth for the truth will be your redemption.

E. Ask for Forgiveness - If you are truly in the wrong then you need to ask for forgiveness. Be honest and tell the person you were wrong and are in need of forgiveness. Time cannot be taken back. The water has already passed beneath the bridge, never to come back. All you can do is ask for forgiveness, this is the only right answer, this is truth and again truth will be your redemption.

If you will do these five steps when you are in the wrong then you will become right and a person in the right has nothing to fear and nothing to be angry about. You will be free for you have done right and the guilt will pass, the anger and fear will dissipate. You will be free and the decision to do right or wrong will fall on the person who has been wronged by you for they now have a decision, will they accept you and do their duty and forgive, or will they become a slave to the bitterness and anger. Now if you have been wronged and attacked without cause there is a whole different set of steps you must take. These will have to be saved for another time.

TO BE CONT.