Question: I’m beginning to think there is nothing like true love. I’ve had bad relationships. Does true love still exist? If yes, how can it be identified?
By: Pastor Taiwo Odubiyi
Answer:
It’s unfortunate that you’ve had bad relationships which have left you discouraged, heart-broken, confused, and wondering if true love exists.
In one of my novels, ‘This Time Around’, Misan had the same problem and felt the same way. She didn’t want to believe in love anymore because she had been disappointed several times. Her journey to the land of bad guys began at the age of eighteen with Henry. After Henry, she had a number of boyfriends before she met a married man whom she thought would leave his family and marry her. But alas – it didn’t happen even though she cooked his food, washed his clothes and warmed his bed. Then she met Antonio, a white cool guy. Wanting to be smart, she had sex with him and became a single mother.
About three years after, she attended a programme for singles, heard the female minister talk about how to have a relationship that would lead to marriage, and she realised that she was the one who had been clueless and doing things the wrong way, while the men including the pot-bellied married man, simply took advantage of her.
To answer your question about love – yes, true love exists, and it can be identified. But before you can identify and have it, you must first of all know what it is and its characteristics.
What is true love?
True love is a love that is not false. It is sincere, genuine, real, dedicated, loyal and firm.
And according to 1Corinthians 13:4-8, ‘This love is patient with you and kind to you. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour you or hit you, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. It does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects you, always trusts you, always hopes, always perseveres. It does not fail or change its mind about you. It is steadfast …’
This kind of love can be found only in God.
“… for love comes from God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” I John 4:7,8
