God tells us nine times in the Holy Bible to love our neighbour as ourself, two times to love a stranger as ourself, five times to love God, and husbands are twice commanded to love their wives.

Pop culture tells us that love is a feeling that sometimes comes and sometimes goes.  Is love really that dependent on our feelings?  Or is it possible for us choose to love and expect that choice will enable us to experience the feeling that we call love?

My wife and I have been married for over forty years.  There have been times when we definitely did not have that loving feeling.  Sometimes we have experienced feelings of anger, resentment, frustration, bitterness.  What would we have gained if we had decided to just give up during those times?  What would we have lost?

Our relationship today is better than it has ever been.  Plus we have grandchildren who seem to think we are pretty nice people.  It has required some self-denial, some apologies, some times of repentance to get here, but it has been worth it.

The same is true for our relationships with other people.  We have left a few churches because we thought they were on the wrong track.  We still meet members of those churches on occasion and we meet as friends, without hostility or bitterness.

We have been members of the Church of God in Christ, Mennonite for almost 34 years and have lived in congregations in three provinces.  There have been rough patches, the fault has been as much ours as anyone else, but there is a bond of love that draws us together.  We meet people we haven’t seen for thirty years and the bond is still there.

Yes, I believe love is a choice and the feeling will follow.  If that were not possible, God would not have commanded us to love, and repeated that command so many times and in so many different ways.

I believe there are a couple of adjectives we should use to describe true love: durable and robust.  Those words may not sound very romantic, but they are a great asset to a true romance.  A love that is durable and robust will not break down the first time it is bumped.  It will not soon wear out with the wear and tear of ordinary daily life.  And when it does break down, it will be easy to repair.  Such a love will last a lifetime.  Charity never faileth.