Love your husbands and children

"...teach the young women to love their husbands, to love their children..."

I listened as Roger preached from Titus 2, a familiar passage. But my thoughts became hung on the verse above, amazed once again that God would see the need for women to be instructed to love their husbands and children. Doesn't that just come naturally, especially to believers?

Sadly, no. To truly love as God would have us to means to love unselfishly. And sometimes it's difficult to see and admit that loving selfishly is exactly what we're doing. If true love is always doing what is best for the object of that love, it often takes a determined effort to remove self from the picture.

Loving your husband and children should be the most wonderful and fulfilling experience you'll have as a woman. But this can't be the reason you extend yourself and express your love for them. Loving your husband and children cannot be about how it makes you feel or about what you want. Wives and mothers cannot do what they do because of how fulfilling it is. It can't be about being needed or appreciated. If you are to truly love the way God would have you to it must be unconditional.

Unconditional love is unselfish. And loving unconditionally will constrain you to continue loving even when it's hard and it hurts. Selfish love quits, abandons, won't forgive, controls, pouts, and manipulates. It doesn't stop until it has its way.

Of course, this goes against most of today's prevalent philosophies; just consider the pro-choice movement as one example, and the 50/50 marriage mentality for another. And because it is so prevalent in society today, and because it's a part of our very nature to be selfish, God's way of loving must still be taught.