If God is the divine lover, why do not all His creatures feel His love? So many things influence our response to God: culture, family background, life experiences good and bad , the teachings of our religion.
But love is a matter of the heart, the soul—not ritual or religion or what our families or peers do. Each of us speaks and understands love differently. I am convinced that each of us has a primary love language, and when we listen to God in our heart language, we will experience His love most intimately. After all, He created us. He formed us in our distinct individuality. Why would He not speak to each of us in our own language? How does this work? Perhaps this is best understood by examining how love works in human relationships.
In other volumes, I have dealt with the problem of not hearing love in our own language. My clinical research has revealed that a variety of love languages exist. The key is learning the primary love language of a child and speaking it regularly.
The same principle is true in marriage. The 5 Love Languages which has now been translated into fifty languages focuses on helping couples learn how to effectively communicate love. This book helps parents learn how to love their children effectively. Next came The 5 Love Languages of Teenagers , which is designed to help parents navigate the turbulent waters of loving their children through the adolescent years.
Finally, The 5 Love Languages—Singles Edition helps singles understand and experience love in all their relationships. For individuals who have a genuine desire to grow closer to the people they love, these books can provide the knowledge needed to do so.
But for significant numbers of people, knowledge is not enough. Actually, all of us fall into this category from time to time. Obviously his problem was not a lack of knowledge; he simply lacked the will to love his wife. The tragedy is that people who choose not to love are never happy people. Their lack of love not only hurts the other person but also atrophies their own souls. People who refuse to love live on the edge of desperation.
The purpose of this book is to bring people closer to God so they can first feel His limitless love and then reflect it to more effectively love others. To love and to be loved—what could be more important? I believe that the key to learning and choosing love is tapping into divine love. However, this is not intended to be a religious book.
If a religious system were able to solve the problem of a loveless society, it would have already done so. This book is an attempt to help people relate to the God who is there, not the gods that culture has created. If you believe in God and would like to be more loving toward those closest to you, then this book can help. I will make every effort to respect your position while I share my own beliefs as clearly as I can. If people are created in the image of God and are His children, we would expect Him to love us.
Also, it would be natural to not only receive love but also to reciprocate that love. This is illustrated in the parent-child relationship. For most parents, loving their children comes as naturally as eating does for the child. Parents love because they are related to their children. It would be extremely unnatural for parents not to love their own children.
It is widely agreed upon that parental love is a part of human nature. It is not something we work to attain. It is a part of who we are as human beings. But this love is not simply a genetic bonding, for adoptive parents and grandparents love their children just as intensely. There is an emotional and spiritual bonding with those children whom we consider ours. We are willing to expend time, energy, and money to promote their well-being. We want them to learn and develop their potential.
We desire that they accomplish great things in life. We are willing to give much of ourselves in order to enhance their lives. We love them. This is the normal emotional response of parents toward children and grandparents toward grandchildren.
Indeed, the absence of parental love is so abnormal that those parents are considered dysfunctional and in need of psychological and spiritual therapy. I believe that parental love is a reflection of divine love. The ancient Hebrew writings began with the assumption of an all-powerful God who created the heavens and the earth. Then, in an orderly fashion, He created plant and animal life and culminated His creation by making human beings in the image of the divine.
Not only do people have the potential for responding to the love of God but, in fact, they are not fully content until they have made a loving connection with God. Allow me here to bring up a word that is unpleasant to many people: discipline.
Just as a wise parent will impose loving limits on a child, so God disciplines His children, always in love, to help them—us—become the people He created us to be. At the same time, I try to be open to the idea that, somehow, God is shaping me through the trials. Whatever our love language, we can all know that the love of God is greater than all we ask or imagine and that His discipline is always for our good.
Saint Augustine wrote that people never truly find ultimate meaning until they respond to the love of God. I remember when the great evangelist Billy Graham passed away, many stories were told of his travels in Eastern Europe—how he shared the love of God in then officially atheistic communist countries. My friend Brian, too, observed the change firsthand. He toured Russia after the collapse of communism. He noticed that on Sunday the churches were filled with people. Knowing that for seventy years Russia had been an atheistic society and that a whole generation had been taught that God does not exist, he was intrigued that so many young people were attending church.
He asked his young female guide, a former member of the KGB, if people had flocked to the churches immediately when given the freedom to do so. No, she said. At first, it was only the older people. Then the young people began to attend. Now all the churches are filled.
Earlier, we believed that our political leaders were gods. Now we know that is not the case. We have learned that man is man and God is God. Now we wish to know more of God. If people are truly made in the image of God, this response is what we would expect. How much more, then, do we need to feel the love of God, our heavenly Father? To know and to love God should be our chief end; all else is simply background music. What I hope to do in this book is share what I have learned about love during many years of marriage and family counseling.
I believe that human love relationships reflect the nature of God, who is love. If we can understand the dynamics of human love, it will help us better comprehend the expressions of divine love. In doing so, I want to introduce you to friends I have met along my own journey. In most instances, only first names are used [and changed], and details have been altered to protect privacy.
Some are people I have known for many years; others are more recent acquaintances. But all of them experience the love of God very deeply—and seek to express that love to others. I have been helped and inspired by their stories, and I.
Open navigation menu. Close suggestions Search Search. User Settings. Skip carousel. Carousel Previous. Carousel Next. What is Scribd? Explore Ebooks. Bestsellers Editors' Picks All Ebooks. Explore Audiobooks. Bestsellers Editors' Picks All audiobooks.
Explore Magazines. Editors' Picks All magazines. Explore Podcasts All podcasts. Difficulty Beginner Intermediate Advanced. Explore Documents.
Cancel anytime. Start your free 30 days Read preview. Publisher: Moody Publishers. Released: Sep 4, ISBN: Format: Book. Also available as Contains personal reflection questions and a study guide for groups.
About the author. Gary Chapman is Chad's father who wrote the story. Read more. Related Books. Related Podcast Episodes. Erin Podcast 11 min listen. This is such an episode. Paul Selig is the first channel I've interviewed on Afterlife TV, and he demonstrates his channeling 3 times during the sh Why the lure of Sex is so great Marital love making is supposed to be intoxicating Should you try to make your sex life exciting? Could God wants our sex life to be Our guest, Melissa Ambrosini, is the bestselling author of two incredible books Open This notion comes from a book, titled: The 5 Love Languages, by Dr.
Gary Chapman. He leans on his decades and decades of experience with pastoring and marriage counseling. The Love Languages of God. The 5 Love Languages. Outlines five expressions of love--quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, and physical touch-and explains how to identify and communicate effectively in a spouse's "love language.
In The 5 Love Languages of Children, the author examines the different languages your children speak. Sometimes they wager for your attention, and other times they ignore you completely. Sometimes they are filled with.
0コメント