Four Stages of Love Part I

I have read many books on Christian courtship, which all have been helpful to some degree, but the way that Richard Rohr describes falling in love with God really is a model that we can follow in our relationships with others.  Rohr describes four stages of falling in love with God that every believer goes through and while I was reading his descriptions I realized that the steps can also be applied to human love.  There’s a process that we all go through in falling in love with another that begins with excitement, wonder and dream that gets challenged as our true selves are revealed and concludes with choosing to love one another honestly with true acceptance –weaknesses and all, choosing to see one another through God’s merciful, loving eyes and to become family while aiming to reach the kingdom of heaven together.  

Stage One:  Is the beginning of love; that usually involves powerful feelings of fervor and euphoria that generally don’t last long.  It’s a time of wonder and a time when we become excited about what the dream does for us, what the other brings out in us and also what that person gives us.  It slowly begins with trust and “reveals a capacity to wonder, and awe and desire. It is a dependency on another, a recognition of life within another, and therefore the beginning of love.”  Falling in love with God was a slow progression.  I remember after my first encounter with Him at a retreat I felt this strong attraction and He occupied all my thoughts, but I was also very distrustful and cautious.  In protestant churches becoming friends with God is a philosophy that is engrained in its followers; thus, I began a friendship with God.  Slowly I opened my heart and life to Him and with an unhurried gentleman approach He slowly wooed me.  Similarly, falling in love with another follows this period of dreaming, of hope and of desire to be known and know the beloved.  Yet, many “folk are not capable of stage one because they refuse to release their hearts to any individual who is not formed or perfect and worthy of their self-donation… If we are waiting around for someone to appear in which we can invest ourselves from a position of total, objective detachment, then we want a job perhaps, not a relationship.” Love loves the imperfect and hopes and believes the best for the other. Developing a healthy friendship first enables us to have the courage to open our heart to anothers and to slowly kill the fears that rise in the process of mutual self-discovery.  

Stage Two: Is a troublesome stage where we begin to see the imperfections of the other person and slowly we lose our nerve and the temptation to end the relationship and leave is quite strong.  It’s a stage of discouragement where many rational problems will appear and our emotions will experience a “dark night of the soul.  We begin to experience our inadequacy and our need and know deeply and darkly that we are imperfect, that we are sinners.  And then we have to be converted in order to live.”  We shouldn’t deny or believe our emotions, but allow ourselves to feel those insecurities with the hope that together with God we can get through it.  After the initial butterflies wore out in my encounter with God, I realized that I had to change a lot because hanging out with a perfect God helped me see my imperfections rather clearly.  I realized that I needed to transform my thoughts, ways and actions – and boy was that scary.  I almost left God and my Christian faith during this revelation, but soon I realized that God cheered me on.  He more than anyone (even me) wanted me to become a better, happier person.  In the same way, as we begin to see the weaknesses of our beloved and in ourselves during this period of deeper revelation it’s important to encourage one another and to help each other see the light not just the darkness.  This period of desert is not a stage that one must encounter or travel alone together with our friend and God we can make the journey that all the saints must make for, “the desert is God’s chosen journey to make saints out of all people… During this period we need people who understand darkness, and by their presence can hold us through to the light.”

Stage Three:  Amazing grace breaks us into stage three.  Here true love begins.  We know that we are imperfect and that our beloved is also flawed, but we are free to love anyway.  This freedom and choice to love opens us to love the way God first loved us.  We begin to see each other through the eyes of God- in the same way He looks at us.  Our love now makes us dependent on the other and we crave for shared life because that’s what God wants for us - to live in community, “shared life is possible because God is shared life. Here honest communication begins.  True listening and healthy obedience are no threat.” When I got to stage three in my relationship with God I knew that I had found the well to life everlasting and I knew that no matter the struggles God and I were in it until the end.  In the same way, when you come to this point in a relationship with another you are ready to become a family.  The relationship is “no longer used simply to work out our own personal goals and agendas, but it’s now enjoyed in itself.  The two now have the possibility of becoming family… This stage is a delightful and holy place to live.  It is a true foretaste of the coming kingdom and communion of saints.”       

Stage Four:  This is the goal we strive to reach and live together “a place of perfect listening, perfect responsiveness and perfect love.”  (I will talk about this stage more in depth tomorrow).

To be continued… Four Stages of Love Part II