The Dangers of Love in the Modern World

There are several types of love mentioned in the Bible. In the old Testament, we have the Hebrew word Ahap (having affection-like a friend), Ahabah (to be the same), Chashaq (desire-to delight in), Racham (to have compassion-mercy), and Egeh (to give amative words) in the New Testament we have Greek words Agapao (moral sense), the well known Agape (Affection or charity), Philadelphia (fraternal affections-kindness brotherly love), and Philarguria (Avarice- love of money). The love I want to talk about here is the modern twenty first century love. If parents will become part of their children’s marriages in the area of choosing whom they will spend the rest of their lives with, I believe a great deal of stress and chaos can and will be alleviated from future marriages. I would also like to show in the following words how God designed love as a great infusing tool for young couples and how Satan will use this same format to bring chaos and destruction. 

The modern definition for love might be summed up in one word, (attraction). A man walks into a diner on the corner of Somewhere and Vine. He sits down and a waitress brings him a glass of water. Their eyes meet while she takes his order and six months later they’re married. Yes, that sounds like a movie but it happens and it happens more than you might believe. So, what happened in that diner that brought such a quick commitment and probably an even quicker rebuttal of that commitment later in their marriage? 

 The answer is love (attraction). It is one of if not the most exhilarating of all human emotions. It draws us together in ways we can hardly fight. It gives us fear that life is not worth living without this person, it makes us say and do things we never thought possible of ourselves. It also makes us weak to our moral commitments as compromise finds its way into our lives and our parent’s opinions becomes less than important. The secular world might say “You have fallen victim to nature.” 

 When we fall in love, an irresistible cocktail of chemicals begins to entice us. Surprisingly, it takes only ninety seconds to four minutes for you to decide if you fancy someone. 

 Attraction is that amazing feeling of being love struck. You can think of little else but that wonderful person you just met. Studies have shown there are three main neurotransmitters involved with attraction: adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin. 

 The initial stage of falling for someone galvanizes your stress responses, increasing the level of adrenalin in your blood. One might recognize this as sweaty hands, racing heart, dry mouth, and so much more every time you see or bump into your special someone. If you have ever been on an adrenaline high, then you know that your body is completely devoted and ready to act on what ever your mind is thinking. If you’re thinking about running then you body is going to run like never before, and if you’re thinking about spending time with someone, then you will find a way like you never thought possible. Adrenaline is that non-stop flow of motivation that a newly in-love person feels. Adrenaline is also that bulletproof feeling that makes you say and do unbelievable things. When the body is in the adrenaline mode there is no color: only black or white, succeed or fail. One does not operate with any thinking just the two previous choices. 

 Next is the neurotransmitter dopamine. This chemical invigorates the desire and reward center of the brain by triggering an intense rush of pleasure. It is literally like taking cocaine. During this surge of dopamine you will have more energy, less need for sleep or food, focused attention and exquisite delights in the smallest details of this novel relationship. There will hardly be a touch or a look that will go unnoticed. Every interaction will be one big rush of joy no matter what you do or talk about. The very feel of an object or the sight of a photo will utilize dopamine in a remarkable and addicting way. 

 Finally; serotonin loves most significant chemical. Serotonin plays a large part is your cognitive functions, including memory and learning. This chemical helps explain why your new found love keeps popping into your thoughts and why you learn so much about what they like and desire. Serotonin focuses the attention of your mind on the object that is now loved. Every conversation, flower, tree, sunset, and so-on will bring the mind back to one thing. There will be little room in one’s mind for anything else. 

 By walking these three chemicals backwards we can see how well they play together in the sandbox. Once your mind decided to love this person, serotonin locks the decision in place and puts all the brains thinking power on this new point of focus, consequently leaving no brain power for any other thinking. Then dopamine comes along and rewards the brain and the body for all its time spent thinking and learning about this person, and making all the sleepless nights worthwhile. But adrenaline finalizes the package by giving the body all the energy and raw horsepower it needs to push through the roadblocks to make sure nothing happens to loose this person in their life. 

 A study by a psychologist Dr. Marazitti found that this stage of attraction actually changes the way you think. During this stage of love one will have a serotonin level equivalent to patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders. If you have ever been around someone with OCD you would know they have little control over the way they conduct themselves with their obsessions. Their thinking is clouded and they can’t look past the next five minutes of their life. This is what is called Blind Love. Love is blind when your feelings overpower your ability to think, I didn’t say think clear, I said think. A person in love is not thinking at all. His mind is operating on a skeleton crew to keep the body up and running and everything else is focusing on this new awesome pleasure and desire. 

 Find a stranger; reveal to each other intimate details about your life for 30 minutes. Then gaze deep into each others eyes without talking for 4 minutes. When you are finished you will have found your one true love. A New York psychologist did a live study. He asked his subject to perform the above steps. He found that most of his couples felt deeply attracted after the 34 minute experiment, and two of his couples actually got married. 

 How does all this play out? Is love for all intents and proposes evil? Is this for God’s purpose? Falling in love is not a one time event; it can happen over and over again. It was not designed to be a permanent part of our lives, but rather to be used to get couples though the door, settled and protected from reality in the first part of a marriage till a different kind of love takes over, an unconditional love spoken of in (Ephesians 5:25) “Husbands love your wives, even as Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it.” where one loves as Christ loved us. As one can see above the chemicals used in the process of falling in love is a very powerful tool if used correctly. I believe Satan uses this phenomenon to his advantage every chance he gets, but it is for God’s purpose not Satan’s. 

 Most of us are familiar with arranged marriages that our so called backward ancestors used with success for many centuries. Why did our forefathers have such good luck with this type of courting? They where simply using the tool that God gave them. I’m not suggesting that arranged marriages are the way to go, but the above facts show that arranged marriages would probably have more success and gratification than falling in love with some stranger or neighbor that shares none of your childhood or family values…I believe God set this chemical attraction in our bodies to form a bound with someone we might not otherwise choose for ourselves. This is a tool given to fathers and mothers to use as a way to bring two young people together based on their backgrounds, their values, their traditions, and the way they see God. We can read the story of an arranged marriage in Genesis Chapter 24 of Issac and Rebekah. This story of Isaac and Rebekah shows how two people that have never met can build a long and successful future together. In (Genesis 24:67) we see that after Isaac and Rebekah met that they went to Isaac’s mother’s tent. Here is where I believe they used this time to gaze into each others eyes and share their deepest feelings about themselves, thus falling in love. 

 Many of today’s marriages fail because the two people that were so in love are trying to spend their lives with is a person completely different then themselves. He/she doesn’t feel or believe anything like you, doesn’t want the same things as you, and may not even be a Christian like you. How could that happen? Simple, Love is blind. If we are left to our own choosing with a choice structure that is based merely on who will look into our eyes long enough for us to fall in love, then it should be of no surprise that these marriages produce little or no good fruit. A strong, irrevocable, and jovial marriage is not based on what you feel, what you say, what they say; it’s not even who they are or what they do at that time that matters. (Proverbs 22:6) “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it”. People are going to go different ways, some may even stray for a time, but this verse says that one day they will return to their childhood upbringing. So how does one choose a spouse based on this powerful verse? The answer is by their father’s and mother’s values not by his/her own. If the values of the young person’s family doesn’t match in significant ways to the spouse to-be family, then there will be hard, hard times ahead for this union. It is of little relevance where you are or where you are going, some day you will want what you had as a child, and if your spouse had something different you will grow in different directions. 

 Isaac and Rebekah knew the importance of like family values and we see this in (Genesis 26:34-35). After Esau married a woman from the Hittites, Isaac and Rebekah had a “grief of mind” they knew that this union would not bring good fruit for Esau. Rebekah used the need for a similar yoked woman for Jacob to convince Isaac to send Jacob away to Labon, a double witness of how important this was to Isaac. Also in Genesis 28:8-9 one can see that even Esau felt the stress and disappointment of his parents so much that he went and found another woman from the family of Ishmael. This shows that Esau didn’t have a desire to disappoint his parents just a little too much freedom. 

 Is there a link to the increased divorces of today do to the misuse of this tool called love? I believe there is in two main areas. First, marriages had a better chance of surviving every decade one goes back in time. The reason for this is that families several decades ago had more in common than families today. For example, in any given small town today there will be several churches, several clubs, and even more world views. There was a time when entire countries had the same political and religious views, but today you can’t find a neighborhood with similar values. In short a young person has a better chance at winning the lottery than randomly falling in love with someone of common values. 

 The second link is that today more than ever before in history men and women are thrown together for several hours a day for several days a week. This place is called the work place. It’s a place that can hardly be avoided yet puts so many people of unlike upbringings together in a way that love may be triggered. Is it no wonder that adultery is so disproportionate today. This coed work environment takes a toll on the married as well. As mentioned earlier the feeling of love can happen many times in a given persons life, and it is no respecter of persons married or unmarried. 

 Let me bring these two links into focus. One hundred fifty years ago if a couple fell in love outside their families knowledge, and got married without fully knowing each other, and they discovered as they go through their reality phase of marriage that they may not really like each other, their success will still be very strong due to the fact that they will have similar backgrounds. They may not like each other at first, but they will want basically the same thing in life. Background diversity was much less common in years past in compared to today. Also a hundred fifty years ago the chances of a person with dissimilar backgrounds meeting were nearly unheard of. Young men and young ladies would normally meet their spouse in their own home, not at some bar or in a work place. What little differences there were between some families was easily recognized and children were easily protected from this diversity. 

 There was a woman it the Bible that understood the importance of family values and also the tool of love, and her name was Naomi. Naomi set up what may be the world’s greatest match making plan of all times in the book of Ruth. She found what she believed to be the best man for Ruth, and then was 100% proactive in bringing Ruth and Boas together. Naomi used her knowledge of love and her authoritive influence over Ruth to lead her to a lasting marriage. 

 How does all this play out in today’s world? The purpose of these words is to show evidence that God has a method for parents to use in marrying their children off. A tool that was very successful many years ago whether they where aware of it or not, but I think they were. By having an understanding that we parents may need to look at families more closely, and not just focus on the individual person in question. Where a spouse comes from is much more relevant than where he/she is today. And acknowledging that God has premeditated a matchmaking tool to be used to guide our children to the person that we signify for them. God has always used headship for His glory, why would anyone think that the use of parental authority ends when children get old enough to fall in love, or “fall into the pit.” Satan knows and uses this tool every day why wouldn’t we? By being aware that our young people can fall in love with any given stranger at work or at school may not solve all our problems but it can help us to build a plan that can better protect our precious children. I have often heard parent say “I trust my son or daughter.” Well I hope it is much clearer now that when it comes to romance it’s not about trust but about knowledge. This is not to say that this is the only tool in Satan’s quiver in the war on marriage, but it is a real one, and one that he loves to use. 

 Parents are going to have to step up and be part of their children’s future. There has never been a time in history when parent need to be more involved in the pre-marriage stage of their children. Yet it seems that there is less involvement than ever before in history. We can not abandon our children in the end. There is so much nurturing, schooling, guiding, and investing in our children only to turn our heads when they go out into the world. This is the time they need us the most and millions of parent today are washing their hands and saying were done “good luck to you.” 

 The story of Samson is a good example that shows the destruction of improper understanding of protecting our young adults. Manoah and his wife were great parents doing everything the angel told them up to the point that Samson became of the age of marriage. Here they failed to educate and protect Samson by allowing him to spend time with the Philistines especially without there supervision. This familiar story is full of chaos and destruction of Samson’s life all because of love. We read in (Judges 16:4) after Samson met Delilah “that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah.” Was this love the deep unconditional love that Christ later speaks of? No, this love actually translates into affection. Samson was a victim of his bodies’ response to spending time with the wrong woman, which brought him and his family misery and ultimately costing him his life. The story of Samson shows not just the suffering of Samson but of his parents. We can’t escape the sorrow that comes with being parents of hurting children. Everything we can do to help them will ultimately help us. 

 Now that we better understand how falling in love works, what do we do now? This chemical process called love is so powerful that once injected it may be too late. God made this to work so it is strong for a purpose. Today may be the hardest time in history to war against Satan’s use of love, but we dare not give up. The need to see our young adults protected is greater than ever before. Instructing them early in life to better understand (love) and encourage them to avoid the environments that create problems. Schools must be chosen wisely, schools are a breeding ground for unhealthy relationships. Weekend outings with their friends should be monitored. When young people leave your sight, they are out of your sight! This may seem obvious. However, if you walk down the main street of any town in America on a weekend night you will see endless teenagers walking, riding, and idly standing about but not a single parent, Christian parents included. Walk into a movie theater and I’ll show you unescorted children watching movies rated far above their pay grade. Yes, Christian children will be found as well. There was a time in history when that would have been called abandonment. One of the greatest battles being fought today is marriages and this battlefield is the homes of Christian parents. When youth are young plant these seeds. There must be an effort put-forth to protect our future from being collateral damage. 

 My prayer is that with this powerful contrivance parents can be fully proactive in the choosing of mates for their children and insuring the family backgrounds will coexists together in a Godly and harmonistic way. It is my fervent hope that parents will better understand the relevant danger of our modern co-ed lifestyle, and warring against it any way we can.