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Finding Perfect Love in 2009 (Part Three of Six):
Perfect Knowledge
Written by Thomas P. Schmierer
February 21, 2009 |
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 Want to find perfect love in 2009? If so, then you will first need to learn how to love perfectly. One necessary part of this learning process is to gain perfect knowledge of how to love. Once we possess it, we greatly increase the likelihood that we will quickly find perfect love.
Why Our Relationships Fail
As humans, we have a darkened intellect due to Original Sin. This darkened intellect is often the cause of disaster in our romantic relationships. If we think back upon some of our past "failed" relationships, we realize that at certain times in our life we did not have a clue about what it means to truly love one another.
Even now, if we are single and have had countless "failed" relationships, we must admit that we might still have more to learn about the essence of true love. In order to make a good relationship last, we must first know what it means to love.
In last month's article we discovered that seeking perfect counsel will help us to find perfect knowledge, a.k.a. wisdom. We learned that we can find perfect counsel in a priest's Sunday homily and that we practice prudence when we do what the priest instructs us to do in that homily. Still, there is yet another way to gain perfect knowledge other than through homilies. There is another way to discover how to love perfectly.
Perfect Knowledge of Perfect Love
If we want to know how to love perfectly, then we must turn to the ultimate expert on love, the One who loves us perfectly. We must turn to God.
Upon hearing this advice, many of us defensively reply, "But I did turn to God during my past relationships!" While it may appear that we have turned to God in our past relationships, we may have really turned to the "God" of our imaginations rather than the One, True God. You see, God is real. As a real Being, God has real "attributes" and is not the result of our fancies.
When we are not educated in who God truly is, we imagine that God is telling us to do things that might seem loving at the time, but actually are not. Our false understanding of God always leads to pseudo-"loving" behaviors.
One guy might pray to the "God" of his imagination and be "told" to incessantly call his unresponsive, hostile ex-girlfriend trying to convince her to take him back. Another one might pray to his imaginary "God" and "receive the answer" that he should give his romantic interest the "cold shoulder" in hopes that that will spark renewed interest in her towards him. One woman might pray to her imaginary "God" and be "told" that she should stand up for her feminine "right" to dance erotically in public, since doing so generally inspires men to ask her out on dates. Another might pray to the "God" of her imagination and be "told" that she should not even sit in the general vicinity of an attractive man in order to "avoid the near occasion of sin," thus leaving her dateless.
After reflecting on these stories and thinking about some of the silly things that we may have done to ruin our romantic relationships in the past, we naturally ponder these questions:
- How can we make authentically loving choices after praying to the One, True God as opposed to the "God" of our imaginations?
- How can we stop all of this messy relationship madness?
The answer to both of these questions is that truly loving relationships are the fruits of knowing God. Since God wants us to know Him, the real Him, He has revealed Himself to us in various ways. One of these ways is through Sacred Scripture. Scripture is not a figment of our imaginations. It is true. Even though it was written by various humans, it is divinely-inspired, which means that the Divine Author is the Holy Spirit, a.k.a. God.
The Necessity of Daily Devotion
The best way to learn about the real God is from God Himself. The Bible is God telling us about Himself as He truly exists. The Bible reveals to us that "God is love."(1). It also tells us that God loves us perfectly(2). Who better to teach us how to perfectly love than God Himself, Who is Love, through His revelation in Sacred Scripture? It is only by learning from Love through daily Bible reading that we will be able to love perfectly.
Those who think that it is not possible to love perfectly do not yet know God or His revelation, for the Bible says that "He who does not love does not know God"(3) and also that "if we love one another, [then] God abides in us and his love is perfected in us."(4). When we read the Bible, we come to know God as He truly exists and this provides us with the knowledge of how to start loving others as God loves us.
The Bible increases our awareness of what we did wrong in our last relationships and teaches us how to do better right now:
- "Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger"(5)
- "...in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling"(6)
- "Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger"(7)
- "Let us have no self-conceit, no provoking of one another, no envy of one another"(8)
- "So put away all malice and all guile and insincerity and envy and all slander"(9)
- "...avoid stupid controversies [...] for they are unprofitable and futile"(10)
These quotes are only a smidgen of the total knowledge on the topic of perfect love found in the Bible. If we had been reading verses like these daily during our last relationship, then we would now be at peace, knowing with certainty, that we had perfect knowledge of how to love at that time, but that the relationship simply "failed" through little fault of our own. If we were not reading the Bible daily, then we most certainly must take a good look at ourselves and consider making a change.
If we are resolved to finding perfect love in 2009, then we will begin by committing to read a portion of the Bible everyday. In summary, since God is Love, it follows that by knowing the One, True God as revealed to us in Sacred Scripture, we may finally understand how to truly love. By reading the Bible everyday and meditating on it, we will steadily gain perfect knowledge, which will be of great assistance to us in our quest for perfect love!
Footnotes
- Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version, 1 John 4:8.
- Matthew 5:48.
- 1 John 4:8.
- 1 John 4:12.
- James 1:19.
- 1 Timothy 2:8.
- Ephesians 4:26.
- Galatians 5:26.
- 1 Peter 2.
- Titus 3:9.
Thomas Schmierer is a Catholic counselor, writer, and evangelizer for V2C. Visit www.vaticanvalues.com to learn more about Mr. Schmierer's work. For information about his audio presentation on "Christian Dating & Courtship" visit http://www.amazon.com/Christian-Dating-Courtship-Intimacy-Catholic/dp/B001F3H2GQ/ref=cm_cr_pr_pb_i and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aiK4gDojE4.
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