Love Styles

 

PORTRAITS

 

• Fred is giving up. Last week he worked full-time, replaced the roof on the house, and even completed the small handyman jobs that Kristen asked him to. When he came into the house today Kristen was visibly upset and told Fred she feels he is neglecting her. 
• Little Deborah keeps getting gifts from mom, but what she really wants is for mom to hang out and spend some time with her.
• Barry and Joyce both travel for work about once a month. Barry always brings Joyce something home from his trips, but Joyce never brings Barry anything. Moreover, Joyce doesn’t seem to appreciate the gifts Barry brings back. “What gives?” Barry asks you—does she just not care about me? 

 

 

DEFINITIONS AND KEY THOUGHTS

 

We all need love, but we need for it to be expressed in different ways. What makes one person feel loved will not necessarily make another feel loved.

 

There are five basic love styles, which are also known as “love languages.” To show love effectively to others, people must learn to speak other people’s love languages.

 

Sometimes you can love someone with everything you have and they might not even know it.

 

Each of us has a primary love style. Love given in people’s primary love style makes them feel truly loved.

 

The key to keeping love alive in marriage is learning the primary love style/language of one’s spouse and speaking it regularly. The same is true with children.

 

Gary Chapman wrote a book a few years back that described the five “love languages”—five ways that people say, “I love you.” Below are descriptions of the five love languages:

 

Words of Affirmation

This love style uses words to build up the other person. Corinthians 8:1 states that “love edifies,” or builds up. One way to express love is to encourage the other person. With persons who have this love style, even the smallest affirmation goes a long way. Whether spoken or in writing, the goal is that the other person feels affirmed.

 

Gifts

This love style involves tokens of appreciation. Gifts (even inexpensive ones) tell people that they are important and loved. It is not materialistic or selfish. Sometimes thoughts about someone are best communicated in a gift, a tangible reminder of being loved. When Jesus was just an infant people were showing their love of him by bringing gifts. Later, when Mary broke the alabaster jar and poured the oil in Jesus’ hair, such was not merely an act of service, it was an extravagant gift.

 

Acts of Service

This love style involves one persons doing things that another person will appreciate. The Bible challenges people to not just say “I love you,” but to love “in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18). Even small acts count. Asking what can be done to help a spouse or child, and then responding to small requests, is a great way to begin loving through acts of service.

 

Quality Time        

Going to breakfast, sitting on the couch together, having a conversation, and taking a walk; the love style “quality time” is about giving undivided attention to another person. The activity that takes place during the quality time is really unimportant—focusing on the other person is what counts. Time is a powerful communicator of love; kids in particular often spell love T-I-M-E.

 

Physical Touch

 

An embrace, a kiss, holding hands, and a hand on the shoulder are all expressions of love. At a love style, “physical touch is about tender, caring human contact. In the Bible, Jesus showed love to the children by having them come over to Him despite being busy (Mark 10:16). Both young and old, people can benefit emotionally from loving physical touch.

 

Assessment Interview

 

Usually persons will not enter your counseling office telling you they don’t feel loved. Instead, not receiving love will exhibit itself with the following symptoms:

• Feeling depressed
• Lacking energy
• Having no zest for life
• Having no desire to be social
• Not feeling fulfilled.

 

Keeping love alive in a marriage and meeting the emotional needs of one’s children requires learning and speaking each other’s love languages. We can discover others’ love languages by asking three questions:

 

1. How does the person most often express love to me?

(Generally people give love in the way that they would like to receive it.)

2. What does the person complain about most often?

(Complaints reveal their inner needs.)

3.  What does the person request of me most often?

(Usually their requests reveal a pattern indicating their love language.)

 

Ask these questions to determine the persons primary and secondary love languages.

 

Words of Affirmation

 

• Do you need verbal praise and encouragement?
• Do you thrive on verbal praise, tone of voice, kindness, and thank yous?
• Do you love it when people compliment you to your face and to others (directly
• and indirectly)?
• Do you love getting notes and e-mails?
• Do you need verbal affirmation?
• Do you do this for others you care about?

 

Quality Time

• Do you love having people’s undivided attention?
• Do you like it when people come over and just hang out?
• Do you like to plan activities to do with others?
• Do you like quality conversations?
• Do you enjoy the give and take of asking questions and listening?
• Do you really like to get inside people’s heads and find out what they’re thinking? 

Gifts

• Do you like visual symbols of love?
• (Gifts can come in any shape or size—maybe someone just brings you a cup of coffee at work or tosses a candy bar your way. The cost doesn’t matter; it’s truly the thought that counts.)
• Do you find yourself giving gifts to others to show how you care? 

Acts of Service

• Do you like to do things for others?
• Do you like when others help you out as well?  (e.g., someone steps in to help on a project; someone washes your car; someone makes you dinner—and you eagerly do the same types of things for your friends.)

Physical Touch

• Are you a “toucher”?
• Do you give pats on the back?
• Do you give hugs when you meet a close friend?
• Do you appreciate that kind of physical touch from others?

 

Wise Counsel

 

Discovering the primary love language of a spouse or child provides the information necessary to effectively meet that persons emotional needs. The chances increase for reciprocated love if love is first expressed in the other’s primary love language. Loving our spouse and children unconditionally, using their primary love languages, has the potential of working miracles in marriages and families.

 

For Marriages:

 

“Falling in love” is one of life’s highest emotions humans feel. However, falling in love and staying in love are two very different experiences.

 

“Falling in love” is an emotional obsession for another person what involves warm and gooey emotions of affection. The Bible acknowledges this reality (Judg. 14:1–3; Song 4:1–7; 5:10–16).

 

Research shows that the “in-love” emotional obsession lasts a maximum of about two years. Hence, a successful marriage cannot be built upon this temporary emotional high.

 

Keeping warm emotions alive for the long term (i.e. “staying in love”) is Scripture’s challenge for couples. In the Bible, husbands are instructed to love their wives (Eph. 5:25) and wives are to love their husbands (Titus 2:4). In scripture, “love” does not refer to an emotion, but to an attitude and behavior (one that includes both actions and words).

 

God is the perfect example of love. Scripture instructs us to love one another as God has loved us. In fact, if we do not choose to love each other, it shows that we do not know God (1 John 4:7, 8). The Bible teaches us that God’s love draws us to Him, and then to others (1 John 4:9–11).

 

In marriage, emotional needs are met when husband and wife express reciprocal love. If one spouse does not show love, the other should still follow the example of God, who loved us while we were still sinners (Rom. 5:8).

 

Action Plan

 

Determine what language you use to let people know you love them—do you spend time with them, do you do things for them?

 

In turn, you should look at the people in your life and determine what their love languages are. Those people may be saying, “I love you,” but you may not be hearing it because it isn’t your love language.

 

For example:

• Your friends might be coming over to hang out (quality time) and you want them to say how much they like hanging out (words of affirmation).
• You might give gifts to your friends, and they just don’t get it.
• You might hug your friends (physical touch) and they’re put off.

 

Determining one’s own love language, and understanding the love language of those around, will go a long way to communicating the love that is truly there.

 

 

BIBLICAL INSIGHTS

 

[Love] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. —1

Corinthians 13:7

? Bears all things” means that love shelters or covers.

? “Believes all things” means that love never loses faith in others and is willing to

think the best of them.

? “Hopes all things” means that love looks forward with optimism, knowing that

God works all things together for good.

? “Endures all things” means that love holds on. In the end, love never fails and

it never ends.

? When we love, we take part in eternity. We can ask God to perfect our love for

Him and for others.

 

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born

of God and knows God. —1 John 4:7

? God authored the concept of love. When people become believers, they learn

how to “love one another” because the Spirit within shows them how as they

yield to His leading.

? Christian relationships ought to be the most loving in the world. Christians

who meet each other for the first time experience a bond of love that transcends

understanding.

? The love that binds Christians makes for solid and eternal relationships. Th e

love in our relationships reveals God in us.

 

 

"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:29-31)

• People must give love in order to receive love.
• The Greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
• The second greatest commandment (Mark 12:31) is to love your neighbor as yourself.
• This is not a suggestion or a good idea, but a commandment.

 

 

 

PRAYER STARTER

 

Thank You for the love You have shown me through Your Son, dear Lord. Thank

You for the others You have placed in my life. I pray that You will reveal to me the ways in which the one’s I care for best communicate love, and equip us to love one another fully and in your glory…

 

 

Faith, like light,

should always be

simple, and unbending;

while love, like

warmth, should

beam forth on every

side, and bend to

every necessity of

our brethren.

—MARTIN LUTHER

 

To love is to be

vulnerable.

—C.S. LEWIS

 

Condescend to all

weaknesses and

infirmities of your

fellow creatures,

cover their frailties,

love their excellencies,

encourage their

virtues, relieve their

wants, rejoice in their

friendship, overlook

their unkindness, forgive

their malice, and

condescend to do the

lowest offices to the

lowest of mankind.

—WILLIAM LAW

 

 

If you judge people,

you have no time to

love them.

—MOTHER TERESA

 

 

Joy is love exalted;

peace is love in

repose; long-suffering

is love enduring;

gentleness is love

in society; goodness

is love in action;

faith is love on the

battlefield; meekness

is love in school; and

temperance is love in

training.

—D.L. MOODY

 

The greatest happiness

of life is the

conviction that we

are loved—loved for

ourselves, or rather,

loved in spite of

ourselves.

—VICTOR HUGO

 

Love is an action,

an activity. It is not a

feeling.

—M. SCOTT PECK

 

 

 

Real love is not

earned, it is simply

received.

 

 

To learn more see: The Soul Care Bible: Experiencing and Sharing Hope God’s Way