Jesus commands His followers firstly to love God and secondly to love others in Matthew 22:37-40. By definition, limerence presents a direct conflict with this command for any individual who is experiencing it. If we love a certain person more than all else, even our Savior is set aside in our hearts. Then, losing hope of being more than friends with that special person is apt to destroy our lives’ foundation. We must rebuild our hearts on a new foundation, beginning with love, the first fruit of the Spirit.
Matthew 22:37-40 – “And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.’”
Everything To Me
“You mean everything to me” is a somewhat commonplace saying these days among young lovers. Still, I feel it falls short in describing the strong feelings we have in limerence. My UTHC certainly impacted everything in my life. With a mere “hello,” he turned my sadness into bright smiles. Imagining the next time I could see him helped me tolerate activities I would rather have skipped in the moment.
Everything I Loved Was Lost in Him
Even the word “love” itself seemed inadequate to fully capture what I felt for my sweet beloved. “Love is only the remotest word to try to express my song,” I wrote. The song centered around my hope that whoever won his heart would show him the love I longed to be able to pour out on him.
I wished for him that she would never break his heart like not being with him broke mine. My love for him would remain forever, I declared, even though I could never have his heart. Everything I loved, everything that mattered most to me, was tied to him. So losing hope of being with him felt like losing everything I held dear.
Love The One Who Made Everything
Thus we think at the very least, if we do not explicitly say, our UTHCs are everything to us. Even our own lives may not be as important, given that some of us would be willing to die for them. But everything quickly becomes nothing if we base our dependence in a wrong place.
The only one who really deserves to be everything to us is the one who made everything. That is Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Son of God and Son of Man. He loved us so much that He died for us, not just in willingness of spirit but in selfless action. His love is unfailing and true and gives us a sure foundation for His Spirit to produce good fruit in our lives.
Psalm 73:25 – “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.”
Love Is the Foundation of the Fruit
Galatians 5:22-23 – “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
In Paul’s list of the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23, love is the first to be mentioned. This is evidence of love’s foremost importance, acting as the foundation on which the other fruit can be produced. Not only is love given as the greatest commandment, but also the Bible deems it the greatest quality to possess.
Love Forms the Base for All Good Things
The most famous biblical chapter on love, 1 Corinthians 13, states love is above any supernatural gift or surpassing knowledge. It believes persistently, endures willingly, rejoices in truth always and never intentionally offends anyone. With love, we also have faith and hope, but the reverse may not be true. We may have faith and hope and yet not necessarily have love. Love is the greatest because it encompasses all these good things and more, and it never ends!
1 Corinthians 13:13 – “Now faith, hope and love abide these three, but the greatest of these is love.”
Biblical Love Recognizes Jesus as King
Love allows us to best embody Christ’s will in our lives. He calls us to humble ourselves and think more highly of others, meeting their needs selflessly. For that special person who holds our hearts, we would give almost anything to make him or her happy! In this way we might think of ourselves as selfless when it comes to sacrificing for that person.
However, in reality, we do those things out of selfish affection, hoping our actions will win his or her heart. Therefore, the kind of love we feel in limerence is not biblical, for it fails to recognize Jesus as King. Biblical love first of all draws us to our knees in worship of Him. Then out of gratitude we love others by sharing what He has given us with those who need it.
Impossible Strength in the Lord’s Love
On this foundation of love, the Holy Spirit adds the fruit of joy and peace. Then patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and gentleness seem to come more easily. Even self-control, the last fruit on the list, becomes less of a burden.
When we suffer from limerence, it feels impossible to control our thoughts and feelings. But with strength from Christ, we lasso them and pull them back out of love for our Lord. The Spirit then cultivates and grows this godly love to help us put our hearts back together. Without fear of destruction anytime from now on, we can rebuild them on the strong foundation of His love.
Philippians 4:13 – “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Rebuild Your Heart on His Love
“Broken” doesn’t begin to cover it. “Devastated” gets a little closer. If I had been caught sobbing the day I found out the one I loved didn’t love me, I don’t know how I would have explained it to my teachers. “He doesn’t love me” would have caused me to burst into a new bouts of tears halfway through. It was hard enough reading the note, but hearing my own voice saying it would have made it excruciatingly more real. I’m grateful that I was able to weep in solitude when I finally got home.
God’s Love Collects Our Broken Pieces
Psalm 147:3 – “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
Indeed, the sorrow is profound when we realize we cannot have the one we want most. God’s love is strong enough to reach through the rubble of our broken hearts to collect what remains of us. It encourages us to form a new foundation for our lives, based on His promises rather than limerence or any other source of false hope.
Though we can hardly imagine how our hearts could ever be whole again, His love pieces it back together. A worldly view of trust makes it feel like a one-way ticket to another heart shattering event. By contrast, trust in His love in fact is the path to rebuild it.
Psalm 20:7 – “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.”
Behold God’s Undeniable Love
In the psalms we find descriptions of God’s love as steadfast, unending, boundless. It reaches to the heavens and to the depths of the sea. Nowhere can we go where it does not extend to us. So instead of wallowing in brokenheartedness, His love beckons us to behold Him and trust in Him.
In Him our future is sure. After being broken by rejection in limerence, we may not be certain what our future is, but we cannot deny His love for us. In light of this, let us pick up a piece or two and build our hearts anew on His amazing love.
Psalm 36:5 ESV – “Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.”
Psalm 13:5 – “I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.”
1 John 3:1 – “Behold, what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God.”
Romans 8:38-39 – “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
