My wife and I usually sit in the living room on weeknights to watch two television shows that we enjoy, "Jeopardy" and "Wheel Of Fortune." On the way to that channel the other night I happened to stop for a moment while a woman was interviewing Tory Spelling. You may know her, the daughter of the late mogul television producer Aaron Spelling, who gave her a gig on one of his television series, "90210," and who of late has been crying all over television because her husband cheated on her. What I did not know is that both she and he were previously married and became romantically involved with each other while married to their first spouses! The interviewer asked her, "Isn't this just karma for you, getting what you deserve for cheating on your first husband?" Her response was, "I can't help it that I fell in love with him. You have no control over who you fall in love with."
Sadly, such a notion of love is the predictable consequence of sin's constant attempt to shift blame away from self for wrongdoing. It began with Adam: "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." Eve quickly picked up on the tactic when she said, "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." It has been an ongoing finger pointing tactic ever since. For Tory Spelling (and others) to insist she fell in love is to shift blame for all consequences resulting from involvement with that other person somewhere other than where it belongs, with herself. How can anyone be surprised that a cheater will cheat, that a liar will lie, or that a thief will steal? To claim that you cannot help who you fall in love with is a useful tactic employed to disavow any future responsibility for choices made in the past. And it is just plain wrong!
To claim you have no control over who you fall in love with is wrong for many reasons. Let me suggest only two at this time: First, it suggests people have no control over their thoughts and/or feelings about others. Are we that mindless that we have no control over our thoughts and actions? If that is the case, why do police arrest suspected criminals, district attorneys prosecute them, juries convict them, and the government punish them for wrongdoing? Second, the concept of love referred to is seriously flawed. In God's Word love is both attitude and action toward someone that recognizes need and moves with good will to fulfill that need (John 3.16 as a wonderful example). Love is not eyeing another person and seeing him or her as a likely candidate for self-gratification and then taking steps to fulfill that gratification. Such is not love at all, but lust. Sadly, most people have no concept of the profound distinction that should be made between love (rightly understood) and lust (rightly understood).
That is where parents come in. If parents do not teach the difference between lust and love, by their example and by their instruction, the stage is set for very hard lessons and tragedies in life as a result of heartaches and disappointments from not knowing the differences. Love, real love, is good, meets the love one's real needs, and is not anything one falls into. It is a choice that is made, properly a choice to commit oneself to meeting the other's deepest and most profound needs, or to prayerfully encourage the one loved to seek help from the One whose love we pattern our own love after.
Sadly, such a notion of love is the predictable consequence of sin's constant attempt to shift blame away from self for wrongdoing. It began with Adam: "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat." Eve quickly picked up on the tactic when she said, "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." It has been an ongoing finger pointing tactic ever since. For Tory Spelling (and others) to insist she fell in love is to shift blame for all consequences resulting from involvement with that other person somewhere other than where it belongs, with herself. How can anyone be surprised that a cheater will cheat, that a liar will lie, or that a thief will steal? To claim that you cannot help who you fall in love with is a useful tactic employed to disavow any future responsibility for choices made in the past. And it is just plain wrong!
To claim you have no control over who you fall in love with is wrong for many reasons. Let me suggest only two at this time: First, it suggests people have no control over their thoughts and/or feelings about others. Are we that mindless that we have no control over our thoughts and actions? If that is the case, why do police arrest suspected criminals, district attorneys prosecute them, juries convict them, and the government punish them for wrongdoing? Second, the concept of love referred to is seriously flawed. In God's Word love is both attitude and action toward someone that recognizes need and moves with good will to fulfill that need (John 3.16 as a wonderful example). Love is not eyeing another person and seeing him or her as a likely candidate for self-gratification and then taking steps to fulfill that gratification. Such is not love at all, but lust. Sadly, most people have no concept of the profound distinction that should be made between love (rightly understood) and lust (rightly understood).
That is where parents come in. If parents do not teach the difference between lust and love, by their example and by their instruction, the stage is set for very hard lessons and tragedies in life as a result of heartaches and disappointments from not knowing the differences. Love, real love, is good, meets the love one's real needs, and is not anything one falls into. It is a choice that is made, properly a choice to commit oneself to meeting the other's deepest and most profound needs, or to prayerfully encourage the one loved to seek help from the One whose love we pattern our own love after.
