I Just Want to Feel Loved
“I just want to feel loved,” she said. She was the barber taking care of another customer in the next chair. Her remarkably open conversation was about her recent breakup with a man who she liked, but apparently didn’t meet her criteria for continuing the relationship. It sounded like another in something of a series of relationships for them; they each had daughters who were close in age to each other. Their relationship was three years old, but she moved out on him. She explained that she was working hard to make the “moving” as easy as possible for him, as she was the one breaking the relationship.
Obviously, I don’t know any more details than this. I don’t really know what led her to think she wasn’t loved; I don’t know if her partner failed her in the relationship or whether she was simply imposing unreasonable demands. I think we can probably safely say that neither of them operates from the vantage point of a biblical worldview. This brief window into their world seems to be one replicated, in one way or another, by so many people in our world that it would be tempting to think of it as normal. It is only normal in the sense that a lot of people live this way.
However, I’ve been mulling this over for the last couple of days. Our church is holding its annual Family Camp. It is part of our goal of building biblical relationships among our church people. We aim to build families as such, but even more than that, we aim to build the Christian family, strengthening ties within our local body of Christ, so that our people would more and more reflect the love of Christ within and without our assembly.
There is a sense in which the overheard conversation denies a biblical view of the family and marriage, and there is a sense in which it affirms it. Let’s consider both aspects.
First, at the basic level, the statement denies the biblical view of a family in that it expresses a byproduct of the relationship as the goal of the relationship. “I just want to feel loved.” Is that all a family relationship is about? Are we just in it for ourselves, and how we feel? (I’m not saying that is all that was in this woman’s heart, just commenting on the statement itself.) In a biblical marriage, the primary objective is to bring glory to God. I often thing of a girl I knew years ago who was part of the Sunday school in my home church. I’m pretty sure she’d heard the gospel, I don’t recall if she ever professed salvation. In any case, she grew up and got married. A couple of years later, her husband was severely injured in an accident of some kind. It left him a quadriplegic. I remember our church group visiting him in the hospital, singing carols to him. He seemed appreciative, but could only communicate by blinking. Well, the young lady from our church divorced him. I guess she didn’t feel loved either. However, is that all there is to marriage?
So on the most basic level, the idea that marriage is about “feeling loved” denies the biblical view of marriage.
On the other hand, there is a sense in which the woman ought to feel that her husband loves her. Perhaps “feel” isn’t quite the right word, maybe “know” would be better. “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” – Eph 5.25. Loving one’s wife is a duty of husbands, and wives can’t be faulted for complaining that it is lacking. How do we love? Sacrificing self, convenience, time, interests, etc. for the support of wife and home is part of the expression of biblical love from husbands. It isn’t really to turn men into some kind of feminized vision of what a proper man ought to be, but it is right for men to put away childish things and live in such a way that their wives know they love them.
Thus, there is a convicting aspect to the complaint I overheard in the barbershop. “I just want to feel loved.” From the standpoint of Eph 5.25, she’s right. I wonder how I would rate with my wife in that department? (Probably not high enough, to be honest.)
Dear Christian men, let’s redouble our commitment to our marriages, making sure our wives know we love them. Whatever it takes. Maybe putting away some of our toys… for good. You know what you need to do in your home. So let’s do it.
Dear Christian ladies, let’s be biblical in our expectations. Let’s not look for emotional satisfaction in marriage, rather, let’s look for spiritual satisfaction. Let’s do all we can to glorify God in our homes and marriages. This one goes for the men, too.
Don Johnson is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.