The Work of Staying in Love
Falling in love is one thing. Staying in love is a completely different animal. I am in no way a relationship expert, but can we agree that falling in love is beginning to carve out space for someone in your life while staying in love is a choice to continually carve out more and more space for that person.
Think back to when you first fell in love. You felt an infatuation for that person. Maybe butterflies fluttered in your stomach. They did in mine, and as I constantly find new ways to fall more in love with my wife, those butterflies, they still flutter to this day. As you spent time with that person, that strong attraction of infatuation began to develop into a deeper experience of love. Falling in love is the easy part. Choosing to stay in love is the hard part. It requires work and commitment. Staying in love says – “I see you, all of you, the good, the bad, the ugly, I see all those things, and I still choose you.” Staying in love says – “I wholly love the imperfections and much as I love the good.”
My wife and I have what I think is a very good marriage. Is it perfect? Of course not. We are not perfect people. Can it improve? Sure it can. But over our five years of dating and now more than forty years of marriage, we have worked diligently to share life together, to carve out space for one another, even when the carving is hard. We are two flawed people, two vastly different people, committed to each other, continually in search of new ways to fall in love.
Think of your friendships. I am not talking about the five hundred friends you have on social media. I am talking about the friendships you have in which you really do life with one another. Those relationships do not happen by accident. They take commitment. They take spending time with each other, walking together over the splendor of the mountains and through darkness in the valleys. They require a choice to stay in love, a friendship kind of love.
Staying in love with Jesus is no different. It is not happenstance. First and foremost, it requires giving Jesus complete rule and reign over your life. After that, it takes commitment to press in closer and closer, each and every day. And it also takes spending time with Jesus, meditating on scripture, praying, listening, pushing back against the ways of the world. The prophet Isaiah said this – “At night I long for you with my whole being; my spirit within me watches for you. When your judgments are at work in the earth, those living in the world learn righteousness” (Isaiah 26:9, CEB).
David, when he was in the wilderness in Judah fleeing from his son Absalom, wrote Psalm 63. This psalm reflects David’s never-ending longing for God, his desire to stay in love with God. It begins this way – “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands” (vv.1-4).
Staying in love with someone takes commitment, persistence, nurturing, compromise, conflict resolution, personal growth. But the rewards far outweigh the work required. What things might you need to change in order to experience genuine and lasting love? What investments are you making to fall in love, stay in love, and continually fall more in love, both with Jesus and those around you?
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