Look in the Mirrior

At a seminar a woman raised her hand and said that she thought the problem in dating was that men were only interested in appearance, and she found that to be very shallow. The last man she was interested in, she said, was not interested in her, and she surmised that it was because of her weight.

It did not take long for the audience to hear that she was angry. "Men are so conditional in the way they love. I want to find unconditional love and be accepted for who I am as a person. That is like God's love," she said. "I think you should focus on teaching men how to love unconditionally."


Seminar host: "What is it you want?"


Lady: "What do you mean?"


Host: "I mean, what are you looking for? Do you want to get married? Is that what you want?"


Lady: "Yes, I do. I want a man to love and to share my life with. But he needs to love me as I am, weight and all."


Host: "Okay, I will find you a husband by next Monday. Can you be here? Bring a preacher, and I will have a husband for you by next week."


Lady: "What!!?? What do you mean?"


Host: "Well, you said you wanted to get married, and I'm sure I can do the ceremony."


Lady: "Well, what...I mean, who would it be?"


Host: "I don't know; I will find someone. Don't worry. I am sure I can find someone."


Lady: "But what will he be like? What...who...I can't just marry anybody...are you nuts?"


"Well what is this person like? How do you know I will like him?"


Host: "Wait a minute." Why does that matter? I thought you had no requirements and were into unconditional love. You said you wanted someone to like you just as you are. Now you are saying you have requirements for the person you want to marry. You are saying you won't be unconditional with the man you like. You may not like something about him? That doesn't sound very unconditional to me. Sounds like you have some idea of what is okay with you and what is not, but you don't want this guy to have things he's looking for. That sounds like a double standard to me."


She got the point, yet she was kind of mad. She thought it was okay for her to have requirements on what she was looking for, but that if anyone else had requirements, they violated unconditional love. What a double standard, and also what a fantasy!


The truth is that babies can do whatever they want, act like whatever they want, achieve little or nothing, and their mothers will love them to death. They are truly accepted unconditionally. But at the end of the first year, things change. Parents begin to put boundaries on their behavior. They are required to meet standards and expectations. Some things are met with approval and other things are not. Life is not so "unconditional" as they were born.

Life makes requirements on us; even God does that. God's love is unconditional, but His approval and what He is attracted to is very conditional. Some things He loves, and other things He hates. This is part of His nature, which He has passed on to us. Now don't get me wrong. I am not saying that there is no such thing as unconditional love that looks past imperfections. That is the meaning of agape love. It is the way that God loves us and the basis of any good relationship, especially marriage.

But to make a relationship work and be enjoyable for both parties, there are things that matter to both people. You can't slack off, behave poorly, neglect your chores, ignore your appearance, have crummy manners, be a bad listener, disregard people who are talking to you, or be uncompassionate, and think that people are just going to fawn all over you, as your mother would. Some things are attractive and make being around a person enjoyable and other things are not. I hope they are not shallow as appearance, but they nevertheless exist for all of us, even the lady above.




Continued....