Thursday, September 8, 2011

Men Understand Love Better Than Women

Some people may disagree with me, but I think men understand love better than women. Take for example, the cases where a man loves another man and a woman loves another woman. Two women that love each other will go shopping together. They’ll call each other on the phone. They’ll visit together. They’ll talk about their kids and their husbands. But when men love each other, you see none of that. Oh, two men might occasionally have reason to shop together. They might go on a hunting or fishing trip together. They might sit around and talk about their kids and their wives. But that isn’t love. Most men would do those things with just about anyone, whether they loved them or not. If hunting is his thing, what man would pass up a chance to go? Who cares who he is going with?

When two men love each other, you know it because they work together. Some men will spend a whole day helping a friend repair his car. Some men will take the a Saturday and use it to help a friend move. It may not be physical labor. Some men will help a friend with a computer problem. Some will take the time to drive a friend to the airport.

You might look at that and say that it shows how much the man loves his friend. Not meaning to split hairs here, but I would say that those things are love. Actions don’t show love. Actions are love. The Bible makes it very clear that love is a choice and an action. So many people have degraded love to nothing more than a feeling. If they even consider the action, they seem to think that the action is motivated by the feeling. But love isn’t a feeling. You don’t have to feel anything toward a person to love that person. When you do things for people, there are feelings that come. You would miss them if they died and all of that, but those feeling are just feelings, they aren’t real love.

There are even stronger feelings when a man loves a woman, but love isn’t in what you feel. Love is in how you treat people. So, when the Bible says that husbands are to love their wives, that doesn’t mean that a man has to force himself to feel a certain way, it means he should do things for her. It means he should put her needs ahead of his own. I think most men understand that, even if they don’t do it. But women need to get that too. Don’t go thinking that just because a man doesn’t bring you flowers and chocolates every night he doesn’t love you. Look instead at what he does to support the family. Does he go to work every day? Does he wash the cars, check the tires, and keep them running? That is love.