Love Is As Love Does

Chicago native George Crane was a psychologist and popular syndicated columnist in the mid to late 20th century. He often wrote on marriage and relationships, and prided himself in giving “common horse sense.”One of his favorite stories was of a woman who came to see him about her husband. She hated him. She not only wanted to divorce him, but she wanted to hurt him badly in the process. So she asked Dr. Crane how she could make him miserable. He said, “Go home and act as if you really love your husband. Praise him for every decent trait. Go out of your way to be as kind, considerate, and generous as possible. Spare no efforts to please him, to enjoy him. Make him believe you love him. After you've convinced him of your undying love and that you cannot live without him, then drop the bomb. Tell him that you’re getting a divorce. That will really hurt him.” Two months later, the woman had not returned for her counseling sessions, so he called her and asked if she was ready to go through with the divorce. She told him she didn’t want a divorce anymore but learned that she really loved her husband. When she began to act like it, something changed in her.I know that sounds like, “Fake it ’til you make it,” and I’m not advocating that. But love is an action word. We blow it in our love lives by thinking it’s a feeling. Treating a person with actions of love changes our feelings towards them. When Jesus told us to love our enemies, he wasn’t telling us to develop warm fuzzy feelings for people who have it in for us. He was telling us how to behave. And it’s amazing how our behaviors change our feelings.1 Corinthians 13 is, in my opinion, the greatest treatise on love ever written. There’s not a thing in that chapter about feelings. It’s all about behavior.Give it a try. Take Crane’s advice with whoever it is that you find yourself at odds with the most. See what happens to your feelings for that person. And the cool thing is, it works everywhere. My greatest challenge has been to practice it while driving. When a driver darts in front of me, I want to hit my horn and ride his tail. But that just makes me more annoyed and unhappy. When I back off and smile, giving him space, it does something to me. And everyone in my car, myself included, enjoys the trip a whole lot more.