Chapter 2: Keeping the Love Tank Full

KEEPING THE LOVE TANK FULL

Love is the most important word in the English lanGuage and the most confusing.

... To feel love is the primary human emotional need. For love, we will climb mountains, cross seas, traverse desert sands, and endure untold hardships. Without love, mountains become unclimbable, seas uncrossable, desert unbearable, and hardships our lot in life.

We use it in thousand of ways. We say, " I love hot dogs," and in the next breath, " I love my mother." 

Child psychologist affirms that every child has certain basic emotional needs that must be met if he is to be emotionally stable. Among those emotional needs, none is more basic than the need for love and affection, the need to sense that he or she belongs and is wanted. With an adequate supply of affection, the child will likely develop into a responsible adult. Without that love, he or she will be emotionally and socially challenged.

I like the metaphor the first time I heard it: "Inside every child is an emotional thank waiting to be filled with love. When a child really feel love, he will develop normally, but when the love tank is empty, the child will misbehave. So much of the misbehavior of children is motivated by the craving of an empty 'love tank'"

The emotional need for love, however, is not only a childhood phenomenon. That need follows us into adulthood and into marriage.

After we come down from from the "in love" obsession, the emotional need for love resurfaces because it is fundamental to our nature. It is at the center of our emotional desires. 

We needed love before we "fell in love..."

The need to feel loved by Inez's spouse is at the heart of marital desires.

Marital things are no replacement for human, emotional love.

OUR CRY FOR LOVE

A the heart of humankind's existence is the desire to be loved by another. Marriage is designed to meet that need for I it achy and love. That is why the ancient Biblical writing spoke of the husband and wife becoming "one flesh." That does to mean that individuals would loose their identity.

Could it be that deep inside hurting couples exist an invisible "emotional love tank" with its gauge at empty?

Could that tank be the key that makes marriage work?

I am convinced that keeping the emotional love tank full is as important to a marriage as maintaining the proper oil level is to an automobile.

WARNING: Understanding the five love languages and learning to speak the primary love language of your spouse may racially affect his or her behavior. People behave differently when when their emotional love tanks are full.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: 

What is love?

What do you think of the love tank?

Can it possibly be the answer to all our relational problems?

How can understanding the Love Tank help us minister better to those God sends to FBC?



Here is the website where you can take the test to know your Love Language:

http://www.5lovelanguages.com/profile/

Chapter One: What Happens To Love After The Wedding?

What Happens To Love After The Wedding?

It was wonderful before we got married, but somehow after the wedding everything fell apart.  All the love I thought I had for her and the love she seemed to have for me evaporated.

I can believe it happened to me three time

The desire for romantic love is deeply rooted in our psychological makeup

Keeping love alive in our marriages is serious business

The Truth We're Missing

People speak different Love Languages

If we are to communicate effectively across cultural line, we must learn the language of those with whom we wish to communicate with

Your emotional language and the language of your spouse (co-worker, friends, family members, church member) could be as different as Chinese from English

My friend on the plan  was speaking the language of "Affirming Words" to his third wife when he said, "I told how beautiful she was..."

Perhaps she was looking for love in his behavior and did not see it. Being sincere is  not enough


There are  not 10, 20, 365 basic love languages. In my opinion there are only five. However, there may be numerous dialects (of Love)

Seldom do a husband and wife, ( two friends, co-workers etc...)  have the same emotional love language

We tend to speak our primary love language, and and we become confused when  our spouse don't understand what we are communicating. We are expressing our love, but the message does not come through because we are speaking what, to them, is as a foreign language.

Once you have learned to speak your spouse's primary love language, I believe that you will have discovered the key to a long lasting, loving marriage.

Love need not to evaporate the wedding, but in order to keep it alive most of us will have to put in the effort to learn a secondary love language.



Discussion Questions:

1. Does the Five Love Language only apply to a marriage or romantic relationship?

2. Is it possible to apply these languages to friends, co-workers, church members, and family?

3. How is one's love language form?

4. If we answered #2 Yes, How can we at Friendship use this book to better communicate the love of Christ to them in ways they would understand?

Here is the website where you can take the test to know your Love Language:

http://www.5lovelanguages.com/profile/