Desire to Love

     When I was a child, I always saw myself with a wife and kids.  I always knew that marriage is something that I wanted.  To me, it was just a natural progression of life.  My mom and dad were married,  My uncles and aunts were married, so when I grew up, I would be married.  The plan and thought of it really sounds simple. I "ll be honest, I did have preconceived ideas about marriage. I too believed the lie of the fairy tales, "And they lived happily ever after!"  That's how the story always ended.
    I am going to be transparent this morning.  The truth is all I really had was desire.  I knew nothing about how relationships work. My father was a  terrible example of what a husband and father should be. He was mean to everyone in the house and had very little involvement in my life,  He was always present and always absent.  What my dad did teach me is I wanted to be nothing like him.
     So, here's this little kid dreaming of being a husband and father with no real example in his life. All I had was desire and alot of wrong information on how to make a relationship work. When it was time to start dating and trying to meet a future wife, my past relationships, peers, and bad experiences was my teacher.  So every new relationship I entered into, I brought my past relationships, peers and bad experiences with me and that's how I loved. I had my own emotional baggage without even knowing it.
     How many of you know my desire to love alone was not enough?  How many of us are loving from our past relationships, peers, and bad experiences?  How many of us brought our baggage into our new and now relationships?  How many of us have these fairy tale ideas about marriage and relationships?  How many men truly know how to love a woman without it being a physical display?  How many women love men separate from their previous experiences?  How do we love?
    

Psalm 32:8

New International Version (NIV)

⁸ I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my loving eye on you

     My desire to love was not enough. God had to help me love the right way.  Tomorrow, we will deal with what HE showed me and how that expanded my capacity to love as a husband and father.  If your loving just out of desire, your relationship will wither just like a flower in the sun with no rain.  I need to know how to love you.  I need to know your love language.

Brother Clarence
Author and Family Strategist
www.godlyking.com
www.godlykings.blogspot.com