Teach People How To Love You

Expect what you teach…

Every person who comes into our life is there by permission only.  With the exception of family — we choose who gets access to our intimate space and they learn how to love us by what we allow and what we do — not just what we say. 

That part, what we allow, is sometimes confused with what we tolerate.  Healthy allowance is not the same as unhealthy tolerance.  Unhealthy toleration is allowing the unacceptable.  What we healthily allow, in general, should be based on wisdom, or healthy compromise.

Note To Self: If you accept what you should reject, you teach people how to abuse you not love you.

The bible says, “Can two people walk together without agreeing on the direction?” (Amos 3:3).  This is tricky because, as this scripture implies, before we can walk in agreement with somebody else, we have to have an agreement with and for ourselves about healthy love.

Agreement with self, our boundaries, is a prerequisite to walking in a agreement with somebody else. Can you imagine not having boundaries or expectations for healthy love and trying to make an agreement with somebody else to be in a healthy relationship? Singleness is often looked at as a negative period but the truth is, it’s a period that should be spent working out our love agreement with ourselves.

We’re not ready to enter into a love agreement with somebody else if we don’t have a healthy love agreement with ourselves.

A healthy love agreement with self tells us when we’re with someone who wants to hold us but cannot handle the requirements of us.  Think about an agreement, any agreement, that disagrees with the agreement that you have with yourself…Would you accept that agreement?  No, not if you are convicted and convinced about the benefits of the love agreement that you have with you.

Not only is it important to have an agreement with ourselves about love, it is also important to know whether or not our agreement with self is healthy.  

A love agreement with ourselves is only as good as it is healthy.  An unhealthy agreement with self is based on unhealthy, insecure, immature or damaged emotions, or an inability to trust or rely on self to honor your agreement. An unhealthy love agreement with self is the same as not having a love agreement at all.  Note To Self:  We cannot give, teach or walk in agreement with what we don’t have.  Establish a healthy love agreement with self and pray for the strength and the courage to honor it by whatever Godly means necessary — before you try to make an agreement with someone else. 

Not that you’re perfect, not that the love of your life will be perfect and, not that love does not require work, vulnerability, flexibility and compromise, but the only direction that you can agree to go in has to prosper you and not harm you — or them (Jeremiah 29:11). 

Honoring your love with behavior that agrees with your Savior (1 Corinthians 13:4-7), goes for what you expect and what you give.  We cannot convince somebody that we have a healthy agreement with self if the love we expect is not the love we give.  Or if the work we expect is not the work we do.  Agreement with self covers both — give and take.

Everyone who comes into your life will have a different meaning and understanding of the word love.  Assuming that love means the same thing to everyone, that everyone is healthy or that everyone has the same capacity to love, is naïve. It is not possible to avoid every type of person but the reality is, it is possible to avoid letting the wrong person sit in your life without the responsibility or the ability to walk in agreement with you.

Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).  In other words, Jesus is saying words without actions to back it up are just words, not a relationship (1 Corinthians 4:20). 

Note To Self:  If actions don’t back up the words, you have a verbal agreement, not an action agreement.  Verbal agreements can start a relationship but actions determine whether or not the relationship can continue, or what needs to be done in order for it to fix it.

The love you give and the love you expect teaches people how to love you. If you don’t mistreat yourself or disrespect your agreement with you, if you love people the way you desire to be loved and, if you commit to continuously giving and showing healthy love, you can expect your love to be reciprocated. And if it isn’t, you can trust yourself to refuse to walk in agreement with somebody who disagrees with your love agreement.

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