A trip to Northamptonshire, F1 racing, and the necessities of bread.
Today, we talk about the formula for love. It's time to get back to the fundamentals.
"Remember, you are loved, so go, love better!"
New episodes drop on Tuesdays.
A trip to Northamptonshire, F1 racing, and the necessities of bread.
Today, we talk about the formula for love. It's time to get back to the fundamentals.
"Remember, you are loved, so go, love better!"
New episodes drop on Tuesdays.
The United Kingdom is known for its stiff upper lip, aristocratic ways, and heritage of pomp and circumstance. In a country like England, steeped with history and tradition, innovation typically isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. And that is especially true of the quaint English county of Northamptonshire. As far as the eye can see flows waving wheat and gently rocking fields of barley only broken up by the occasional rolling hill or flowing stream that meanders through a river valley. Sheep graze amongst the fields and woodlands. Northamptonshire is a place where rural is king. Urban areas are sparse. Instead the landscape is dotted with historic villages and market towns. Places with names like Silverstone and Whittlebury… but on May 13, 1950 – the slow-paced, idyllic country pace of Northamptonshire was overcome by a need for speed, and the world would never be the same again.
I’m Scott Beyer and this is the Love Better podcast where we explore the truths and lies about love and more importantly how to turn love into a skill – something we can get better at and hone along the way.
On May 13, 1950, at the Silverstone Circuit racetrack in Northamptonshire, England. The very first Formula One World Championship took place. Formula One racing, now a multi-billion dollar sport all began on that day when Giuseppe Farina driving for Alfa Romeo won the race. If you don’t know what Formula One racing is, it is arguably the most popular motorsport in the world. With international races and a global fanbase, Formula One racing, also known simply as F1 racing is a sport driven by innovation. Known for its spaghetti style tracks that twist and turn, Formula One is all about the recipe for speed. Each year, all the teams are given a formula, a list of basic rules, regulations, and specifications for the cars, and then based upon that year’s formula – each team builds their cars from the ground up. F1 racing is as much about the engineers as it is about the drivers. Car weight minimums, chassis strength requirements, crash test standards, and other specifications such as fuel limitations and wheel dimensions all factor in and must be followed for a car to qualify. In short, whether you are Mercedes, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Mclaren, or Aston Martin – you build your car, but there is only one formula.
And that, is EXACTLY what love is like. There is a formula to love, and within that formula there is room for individuality, but try and break the formula and you will find yourself disqualified. In our modern culture, I believe we have become hyper-individualized. We have, especially in the West, placed such a high value on individuality that we have forgotten that we may each be special and unique… but we are also all the same. Some things are the same regardless of who you are. You may be unique, but gravity and physics treat you just like everyone else. Love has especially been individualized. Emphasis has been placed upon how we feel when we are in love or being loved or pursuing love… and by emphasizing the feeling we have decided that there is no formula – you feel like you feel and that’s what love is. Except that isn’t what love is! There are certain things that differ from person to person, but there are other things that simply are required for the formula to work. There are thousands of leavened bread recipes, but all yeast bread comes down to a few things, flour, water, and yeast. You can adjust a lot of things, but bread without flour is no longer bread.
And this is a good thing, because formulas allow us to know what is fundamental to a thing and what is optional. Sure, eggs, milk, spices, and even cheese might be great in bread, but they aren’t necessary. Find the formula and you have found the necessities.
So, what’s the formula for love? What is necessary? In all relationships, there are four things that are required. Biblically speaking, these are the things necessary for love. Without them it isn’t love, it might be a mutually beneficial partnership or it might be infatuation or it might be manipulation… but if you don’t have these four things – it isn’t love. It’s something else.
So, let’s start with the first one – and it’s a big one. It is the flour of this love formula. Love requires sacrifice. If you are not willing to make sacrifices for the other person – you don’t love them. Arguably the most famous verse in the Bible is John 3:16. Listen to the words of it:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
This verse is a summation of God’s love for mankind, and what does it say – God loved the world so He gave it His Son. If you aren’t willing to give something, you aren’t ready to love. Love requires sacrificial thinking. From having the humility to think less of yourself to the willingness to sacrifice your time and energy, there is no love without another four letter word – give.
Love is choked off when we are takers. Which is hard because it is definitely easier to be a taker than a giver… and all of us started out as takers. Babies take and take and take, but love happens when we put childish things away, get out of our high chairs, and start figuring out how to give back. This by the way is the difference between a marriage and a roommate. All a roommate requires is a common goal, a mutual understanding, and a relationship that benefits both partners. A marriage is so much more than that. We walk away from a roommate when the partnership doesn’t benefit us anymore – when we love our spouse, we don’t keep a tally sheet of what we are getting out of the deal, we pour in to them without keeping a record of rights and wrongs. Love is for givers.
Which brings us to the second ingredient in love’s formula. Love requires Compassion. Compassion is the act of recognizing someone else’s emotions and circumstances, seeing it through their eyes, and searching for opportunities to alleviate the problem. Love cannot happen without attachment. Compassion allows you to attach yourself to both friend and foe alike. I may not like my enemy, but I can have compassion on him. The story of the Good Samaritan is an excellent illustration of this principle. When Jesus was asked to describe what it meant to love your neighbor, He launched into a parable, one that is commonly referred to as the parable of the Good Samaritan. Without reading the whole account, let’s just look at the beginning…
In the book of Luke chapter 10 starting in verse 30 it says,
Jesus replied and said, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leaving him half dead. "And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. "Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. "But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion,
Do you see the requirement of compassion? The priest and the Levite passed by on the other side of the road so they didn’t have to see the beaten man. The Samaritan saw him and felt compassion right away. The Samaritan didn’t know this man, they weren’t lifelong friends, they were strangers… yet, he saw him and emotionally attached himself through compassion. Compassion is the glue that connects us to others, and it requires time and humility.
To show compassion often means you are going to have to ask questions, slow down, pay attention, and be willing to learn something. Compassion doesn’t assume, it investigates. Compassion means I am not too busy for other people and other people aren’t just numbers and names on a page. They are souls, and those souls need to be understood. All love requires compassion. Without compassion, we ignore the fainthearted, the weak, and the struggling. A world without compassion is a world with conflict instead of cooperation. It is one where violence, injustice, and social isolation take over. Over and over again in the Old Testament, God rebuked Israel for not having compassion on others – especially the weak.
The 82nd Psalm says it well, “Vindicate the weak and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and destitute. Rescue the weak and needy; Deliver [them] out of the hand of the wicked.”
Compassion is the connector. It connects us with the weak, the fatherless, the afflicted, the destitute, the needy… and that’s the loving thing to do. Love requires compassion. No compassion, no love.
Which brings us to the third part of the love formula. Love embraces truth. Imagine a world where people lie to each other, deceive one another, and don’t care about what is right and wrong. A world without truth is filled with lies, and a world filled with lies doesn’t have much love in it. The apostle John said it best when he wrote in 1st John chapter 3 verse 18:
“Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.”
You cannot love without embracing the truth. Love isn’t blind. You can’t love the addict by pretending they don’t have an addiction. That’s called enabling… and love doesn’t enable bad behavior. Love in your marriage means embracing the truth of your flaws and the damage they have inflicted. Love doesn’t ignore those things that are amiss, it sees them, identifies them, and then works on them. A marriage that pretends it isn’t broken will never be healed.
Love also requires a standard of right and wrong – you can’t do the right thing for somebody if you don’t know what is right. “I love you” isn’t just words, it is a commitment to do what is in the best interest of the other person… and that means you have to know what that is. True love has the hard conversations, it sets healthy boundaries, and it rejoices that the truth has been brought to light so that the problems can be dealt with. Without truth, love is a paper tiger. Of course, that is exactly the type of love our world fixates on today. Love that is only platitudes and not action. Love requires the facts. Assess, triage, and then act. Love without truth can’t do that.
Which brings us to the final requirement of love. Love requires commitment. There is a beautiful picture of this principle in the book of John. As Jesus’ death drew near, and He knew it was coming, Jesus prepared to die. John chapter 13 describes Jesus’ mindset as the final hours drew near.
“Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”
Do you see the commitment that Jesus’ love has? He loved them to the end. If I allow myself the option of stopping – I cannot truly love. Love requires commitment. It cannot be fleeting. If we only love our children on the good days and our spouses on the days are needs are met… that isn’t love, that’s infatuation. Passion ebbs and flows. Sometimes you adore your job and sometimes you loath it. Some mornings you wake up chipper and bright, other mornings you feel like a troll climbing out from underneath your bridge. Feelings aren’t reality, and they aren’t committed. How you feel will change – love can’t. Love is a vow, an oath and commitment to the wellbeing and the cause of others. If you are going to love people, the only timetable that is acceptable is “love them to the end.”
And that’s the formula. Love requires sacrifice. It sees people through compassion. It embraces truth, and it stays committed all the way to the end. Every one of those things is necessary. And just like F1 racing, you have to build your own car. Your marriage, your parenting, your friendships, and your love of strangers and enemies will all be unique to you – you have to go build those relationships yourself… but if they don’t include the formula, it won’t be love. It might be manipulation, it might be infatuation, it might be a partnership, it might even be an alliance… but without sacrifice, compassion, truth, and commitment it won’t be love.
Learn to love better – learn to follow the formula.
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And until next time, “Remember, you are loved, so go… love better.”