Love is a Skill

I adore those moments when what you have always known suddenly culminates into words; those moments when your thoughts that you have been trying to project make linguistic magic. Tonight I experienced one of those moments. Some may call it reaching a higher level of learning or understanding. Others may call it an epiphany. Either way, I call it just plain damn exciting!

Tonight in my small group from church we dissected an old familiar verse:

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain:  faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 NIV

As we picked apart verse by verse, I had visions of myself and statements I would make in coaching conversations during my past life or of topics from my previous blogs. A smile came across my lips when it all simplified into one phrase for me:

LOVE IS A SKILL! 

A skill, simply put, is a behavior. This behavior is refined over time with knowledge and experience. To be really good at it we need to practice it. We need to make mistakes. We need to learn from them. 

No one is born knowing how to perfectly love. Love isn't a talent we inherently have. We learn it. We practice it. We get better at it. It becomes a strength. 

I've been working on refining my ability to love for a few years now. I should say, I have had a heightened  awareness of my skill level and my desire to improve it. 

All of my life I battled this perception of me that I was manipulative and that I was selfish. Now, I (of course) did not share this perception. To others I always had a motive. I always had an agenda. Nothing was ever face value. It made it difficult for others to fully trust me because trust evokes having someone else's best interest in mind. The best interest in mind was always my own, or so others thought. 

What I learned, in time, was that those other people were right. I didn't even see it. You see, I have high expectations. High expectations for myself and for those around me. Without realizing it I was always giving with an expectation of gaining something back. Maybe it was performance. Maybe it was time. Maybe it was taking my side in an argument. I allowed other people to disappoint me and leave me feeling taken advantage of. I wasn't acting in love. 

For years I practiced giving without expectations. I would look every day for an opportunity to help someone who didn't have the means to help me back. Strangers seemed to work the best for this! The more I did it the better I got at it. It was such an inconvenience at times, but that's why it was so rewarding. I chose to make the act a priority and in turn acted selflessly versus selfishly!

When it came to my co-workers, my friends, and my family I found that day by day it became easier to give without expectations. I finally was able to shake of that manipulative perception others had of me, but it took time and it took skill. I changed. 

Each and every day we come into contact with people who aren't as skilled as what we may be at loving, and that's how we need to look at it. We need to stop letting animosity breed in our hearts, in our minds, and in our mouths. We need to understand that these individuals need some practice, and maybe a mentor. These are our opportunities to show them what the behavior of love really looks like. 

The Golden Rule, "Treat others the way you would wish to be treated."

This really means we need to put ourselves in other people's shoes. If we were them, how would we want to be treated? This isn't literally treat everyone in a way that pleases you. Where is the selfless act in that?

Remember. It doesn't matter how smart you are, how accomplished, or what you say. If you don't have love you have nothing. It's a balance! It's a skill we all need to start perfecting today!