There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love. – 1 John 4:18 MSG
When the fears you have about someone drown out the love you have for that person, it was not love. Perfect love casts out all fear like the Bible says. It means that the purest form of love is stronger than any fear or worry. This is the ultimate test to know if someone loves you; when they place their love for you side by side the worries they have, which one wins the battle? If their worries always seem bigger and never diminished when they talk about their love for you, it was never love. It’s infatuation. Actually, that’s very harsh, it might be a bit more than infatuation. It could also be that they don’t fully grasp the transforming power of love to overcome all fears or perhaps the love is not perfect and well-formed. Remember they can love you but the love has just not been well-formed. And it has nothing to do with how they see you, it’s strictly just a knowledge gap. I have always read the scripture in 1 John about perfect love but it was not until recently that I saw it truly. Love is the most powerful tool on earth, there is no fear that it cannot cast. That is the pinnacle of love, the point where it drives all fears and worries away. Now, do you decide to wait until their love becomes well-formed or do you move on?
The reason why it’s very hard to see these things is that we couple love with other things too often, almost like we’re scared to let love stand on its own, so we attach imaginary straitjackets and conditions. Let us unlink them, shall we? When you love someone and decide to be with them, these are two separate unlinked events that we make the mistake of linking. It is very possible to genuinely and deeply love someone and decide not to be with them. Most times, people conventionally decide that loving someone is enough to decide to be with them, but it is not. Loving someone genuinely means you want the best for them and sometimes your being with them may not be the best for them. On the other hand, the person you love may not initially feel the same way about you and thus decide that they may not want to be with you.
I wanna be with you, but you no dey get enough time for me – Camidoh in Sugarcane
Usually, if you are so sure about the love you have for them, you can decide at this moment to fight for the chance to be with them and show them that you are the best decision for them. At other times, your love for them could also mean that you want to respect their wish of not wanting to be with you and decide to love them from afar. This is the conundrum of love. At what point do you fight for your desire versus acquiescing to the desires of the one you love?
My theory is that this conundrum is best solved by a scenario that happens rarely. A happy relationship requires a rare combination: both partners loving each other and wanting to be together. This mutual and independent choice is the secret to success. Relationships where one person convinces the other to commit often struggle or lack authenticity even if it lasts years. A good example of lasting the test of time but not passing the test. There are so many people who have been together for years and are still together because they just can’t begin to walk away but deep down their depths, it’s felt empty and they have numbed the emptiness.
Most personal experiences perhaps mirror a bit of this. Most people say things like “I have had more people love me than I have loved them”. The biggest problem has always been that the people who love you and are genuinely and deeply in love with you and decide they want to be with you; you usually never feel the same way about them talk more of deciding to be with them. There are four different buckets I mapped for this. The people you genuinely care about, most times, you decide that you do not want to be with them (bucket 1) and in other cases, where you care about someone and decide that you want to be with them (bucket 2), they sometimes either decide that they do not feel the same way (bucket 3) or that they feel the same way but decide not to be with me (bucket 4). In summary, the people you like do not like you and the people that like you, you do not like.
The first rule of love is presence – Stanley Okorie in WithChude
The best way to win someone over is not by becoming who they want (or your idea of what they want); it’s by becoming consistent in who you are that it becomes who they want. If you ever find yourself changing to fit the idea of your love’s interest, that’s a red flag. People never truly change and time reveals the innermost sanctum of a man. You want your Partner, when they get to that Sanctum to still connect the new truths they find there to the old truths, that’s not possible if you had to put on a façade. The other way to win someone is to show up, you will be shocked at the very small number of people who show up generally in this world. So many people talk a good game, they make promises and sometimes make their presence felt when it does not matter, they never actually show up when it matters. Don’t blame them, that is the nature of humans. As a result, if you want to make an impression on someone you like, consistently show up, they will never forget you because you’d be doing something that not many people in their life do. When you show up, make sure it’s constant and consistent, make sure they get to see just enough of you on each visit to make up their mind, make sure they “see you”, make sure you are being seen. The legendary Nollywood composer Stanley Okorie put it succinctly when he said the first rule of love is presence. If you love someone, you want to let them know, the way to let them know is when you show up. Presence.
Love is sacrificial. If someone says they love you but they are not willing to sacrifice anything to be with you, then it is not love. If they are waiting for everything to be perfect, then it is not love. Doesn’t mean they hate you, they just don’t understand what love is and you cannot fault them. Even the best of us struggle with this concept. Love in its nature is rooted in sacrifice. “I love you and I want to always be with you” is not love. It is not practicable to be with someone all the time, you must allow them grow wings and explore and enrich their lives, their lives must not always be about you. Love is sacrificial, you must lose something and be happy to lose it for the other person. If you think the keyword here is “lose”, then you are wrong. The keyword is “happy”.
“Say your love no dey lie, your feelings no dey die. See me girl I dey cry, tell me which kain life be this” – Psquare in Say Your Love
Miracle Roch.