God’s Love Languages
[Note: This blog post is an excerpt from my book, Honest Worship (InterVarsity Press). I encourage you to read the entire chapter, and get the book!]
When Gary Chapman released, The Five Love Languages, he introduced the concept that there are specific ways in which we can express and receive love, and that each person gives and receives these languages differently. While the theory might appear simplistic, I’ve found it to have great practical application in our family. For example, one of my wife’s primary love languages is “acts of service.” And one of my primary love languages is “food.” So when Debbie cooks a big meal for me, I feel loved by her. Likewise, when I clean the kitchen afterward—knowing she hates to clean the kitchen—she feels loved by me. When we were first married, we knew this about one another, so we made a deal. She does the cooking, and I do the cleaning. This is one of the ways that we learned to show our love to one another, in the ordinary moments and rhythms of our day.
This begs a deeper and perhaps peculiar question: Does God have “love languages”? In other words, are there ways that God prefers us to demonstrate our love to Him? Can knowing God’s love languages help us make worship a lifestyle?
Although we can rightfully assert that “God is love” (1 John 4), God does express His love to us through a variety of means—through His Word, through His blessings, through His mighty acts, and ultimately through His Son. We respond by expressing our love back to Him, which in the grand sense, are demonstrations of worship. This vertical love conversation begins and ends with God. It’s my opinion that understanding what pleases God, and making these practices a regular part of how we live our lives, will help us strengthen our relationship with God and help us stay in tune with Him. How do we express love to God in a way that He wishes to receive it?
To answer this question, I think it is important to remind ourselves of the nature of the relationship into which we are invited. Jesus reminds us at the beginning of His Great Prayer that our relationship is kingly but also paternal—for we worship an Abba Father, a Daddy God. It is both holy and intimate. We kneel before the throne, but we are also invited to sit on His lap. “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” (1John 3:1). So I encourage you to keep this Abba relationship in mind as we explore God’s love languages.
For the sake of discussion, I’ve identified five ways that the Bible may seem to indicate as a love language to God: Presence, Obedience, Faith, Loving Others, and Work. Perhaps you can come up with some as well.
PRESENCE. God invites us into a dynamic and on-going relationship with Him. From Adam’s encounter with God in the garden in Genesis 3 to Paul’s startling encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus in Acts 9, to the Holy Spirit’s calling to us today, God has sought a restored and on-going relationship with humanity. And this relationship is not a static, distant one; God is intimate and involved, caring and nurturing, active and alive. We are invited to come near to God, as He comes near to us (James 4:8). We can come with our deepest and rawest thoughts and emotions (Psalms). And Jesus Himself modeled this intimate relationship through the practices of prayer and solitary time with His Father God. (Mark 1:35, Luke 5:16, Luke 22:39-44, etc.). So giving God our time and attention—we might say our presence—can be considered a love language that speaks to our desire for intimacy with Him, and Him with us. For our God is an ever-present God, and He desires that we be present with Him.
There are two main categories of being present with God. The first is having specific and structured time. Examples of this are many, and I will not belabor these time-honored (pun intended) practices. Examples of these disciplines include morning or evening devotions, practicing the divine office, and having specific weekend or week-long retreats to focus on God. These moments can include, but are not limited to prayer, meditation, journaling, Bible study, singing and listening to sacred music, or reading Christian books. Those of us who are more creative may use their commute time to work, or take a slow walk or bike ride in the evening, or having a prayer closet or space in which to be with God. The point here is to have specific and concentrated time with Him regularly.
The second means of presence is to foster an awareness of God throughout the day. The seventeenth century monk, Nicholas Herman of Lorraine, better known as Brother Lawrence, is well known for delineating a way of living where a constant awareness of God is practiced and cultivated. Even in the mundane actions of peeling potatoes or washing dishes, Lawrence encourages us to have an awareness of God’s presence, and worship and interact with Him in the ordinariness of life. As examples of how to practice the presence, some people may play Christian music to keep focused through the day, or place reminder prayer cards on their bathroom mirror or computer screen, or use of short centering prayers throughout the day, or even fasting. I have put on a prayer bracelet during the season of Lent as a trigger to keep me God-centric. While this 24/7 God-awareness might be unattainable for ordinary mortals (like me), the point is to foster a continuing conversation with God, a God-awake attitude hour to hour, moment to moment.
Whether it be scheduled into our calendars or extemporaneous throughout the day, one of the ways we speak a love language to God is to be spiritually connected to Him with our presence.
OBEDIENCE. One of the very simple ways that my children please me is by doing what I ask of them. When they were little, it was about eating their vegetables and picking up their Legos and playing nice with their siblings. As they matured, obedience had more to do with driving the car in a safe manner, doing their chores, and honoring their curfews. When our children respond to our rules and requests with willingness and submission, they demonstrate respect and alignment to us as parents, and we respond with pride and satisfaction. We also understand that their obedience comes not simply from mere rule following, but from a heart that increasingly reflects our habits, values, and convictions.
Jesus uses a different analogy in the book of John. He explains that we are branches, attached to the Vine, and we are intended to produce good fruit by remaining attached to the Vine. He explains, “If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in His love” (John 15:10). To remain—or abide—is to follow or act in accordance with. And to be clear, Jesus is not implying that the love of God is conditional. He is saying that His obedience to His Heavenly Father is an act of love, and that we should do the same. And this should make sense. We cannot expect to have a full and intimate relationship with God if our hearts are in contention with Him. Neither can we worship as intended (Psalm 24:3-4).
It is also clear in John 15 that God expects us to be fruitful. Just as we expect our obedient children to prosper and thrive as they grow in character, so God expects us to bear fruit through our continuing discipleship. Jesus declares, “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” (John 15:8). So God is pleased by our obedience, an obedience which bears “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). In this way, obedience, or our abiding in His will, can be considered a love language to our Heavenly Father.
FAITH. Related to obedience is faith. “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). The Book of Hebrews eloquently describes how the ancients—Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, and others—gave their lives to the promises of God, proving their loyalty and conviction to the vision that God had given to them. Where obedience can be seen as the consistent abiding in the will of God, i.e., to keep His commands, faith is a trust or confidence in God and in His promises.
God highly values faith. Faith is the requisite for salvation, for the saving grace which changes our story from one of darkness to light. As Ephesians says, “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). But faith is more than just a one-time decision. Faith also implies a continual future focus, the firm belief that God will not forsake in times of trial, but carry us to completion in whatever purposes He has for us. In a sense, faith is the engine which propels us through the Grand Story of redemption that the Author of Days is writing in the universe. Abraham’s faith in the promises of God allowed him to participate in the Story, to father a great nation. Moses’ faith allowed him to participate in the Story, leading His people out of bondage and to the threshold of the promised land. David’s faith allowed him to slay the giant, and defeat armies, and build a great nation. We are all a part of this same redemptive meta-narrative. Faith is believing that God has a plan for each of us, and He will carry it to completion.
Finally, faith pleases God, and without faith, it is actually impossible to please Him (Hebrews 11:6). So demonstrations of faith can be a love language to God. One cannot worship without faith, and I would add that our demonstrations of faith, both large and small, are a way we can worship throughout the week. At the end of our days, our highest aspiration is that He would affirm us with, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 25:14-29).
LOVING OTHERS. Jesus was quite clear, in word and deed, that our love of God should extend out to a love for others. In His parable of the sheep and goats, He offers both an encouragement and a warning, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). As His people, we are His expression of love to the world. In fact, it is through the Church that God intends to save the world, for we are His hands and feet—His boots on the ground—to love others in tangible ways.
As noted previously, the commandment to love the Lord your God with heart and soul and mind and strength is central to worship. It’s important to mention that Jesus adds a second command to it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). Essentially, He tethers the Golden Rule to the Great Commandment. We will dwell on this subject much more deeply later; for now, I think it is appropriate to simply note that loving others can be considered one of God’s love languages, given that Jesus says that our actions toward others are in a sense, actions toward Him.
WORK. Work might seem an odd addition to this list. For most people, work is a curse, something we endure between weekends or vacations. But God’s plan for man seems more expansive. It is in the Garden of Eden that God first invites Adam to work under and with God in His plan for creation (Genesis 2:15), and throughout the Bible, we see God providing the means for mankind to flourish and prosper.
Allow me to back up and take a side street for a moment. The first five words of the Bible describe God as an eternally creative being (Genesis 1:1). Thus, our ability to be creative is a vital aspect of what it is to be made in the image of God. Further, creativity and workmanship are necessary components to fulfill the cultural mandate, God’s job description for humanity, “to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). This cultural mandate includes the blessing to prosper and procreate, to care for and steward the earth, and to create and express ourselves in the universe. In a sense, our need to create and organize and thrive is imbedded into our DNA, and then mandated to us as a part of our purpose here on earth. Work, then, is a crucial aspect of crafting and sustaining culture, and God intended mankind to work, as a subset of our creative calling. In a very real sense, we are called to come alongside God’s creative glory and incorporate our workmanship with His.
How many of you, at one time in your life, took one of your children’s crayon drawings and hung it on your refrigerator door? Maybe it was a kitty or a horsie or a race car, or a colorful doodle with a yellow sun in the corner. Why did you do that? Because the art was good? Perhaps, but you also probably hung it because you loved your child. And that artwork represents a part of who your child is. That creation was a heartfelt expression of someone you love. Well, this is how God feels about us. Every creative and culture-making expression done for the King delights the King. For He delights in our prospering, our flourishing, our working with all our might for His glory.
Crafting culture is more than painting a painting or composing a song. Culture-making is a plumber installing a water heater, or a chef creating a meal, or a football coach drawing up a new play on offense, or a man stacking wood. Culture making can be expressed by architects and engineers, athletes and farmers, comedians and pastry chefs, scientists modeling the double helix and stay-at-home moms or dads reading bedtime stories. Our ability to craft culture is a quality shared by all of humanity. And here is my point—God is glorified when we craft culture, when we skillfully and responsibly create and produce and labor for His glory. Dorothy Sayers argued, “The only Christian work is good work well done.” This is why I believe that work—whether vocation or hobby or simple action—can be a love language to God, when done with excellence and spiritual purpose.
But we must be speaking the right language. Christians generally have an under-developed theology of work. The office or job site is seen as secular, far from the churchy or spiritual things that are ascribed to Sundays. Thus, we live dichotomous lives, sacred in one place and secular in the other places. Unfortunately, our actions and attitudes in these other places become secular as well. Perhaps we need a deeper theology, one that sees our places of work as sacred places and our desks as altars and our co-workers as people God loves. Then, we can see that our actions and attitudes, and the very quality of our work, matters. For God is with us in these places—the boardrooms and jobsites and workstations—and He invites us to redeem our time and actions and relationships in them. So our work—the quality of it and the attitude which begets it—is a testimony to others, and a means of glorifying God.
Johann Sebastian Bach, the Baroque composer and musician, famously ascribed the initials, “S.D.G.”, on many of his works. It is an abbreviation for the Latin term, soli Deo Gloria, which means “to God alone be the glory.” It was his way of proclaiming that the musical piece was intended to glorify God and not himself or anything else. Whether it was a sacred cantata performed in the church, or a simple two-part invention composed to instruct harpsichord students in the parlor, his intention to glorify God through every work remained.
[Banner Photo by Emmanuel Phaeton on Unsplash. Inset Photo by Stephanie Greene on Unsplash.]
