Can You Define Love and Commitment Part I

Can You Define Love and Commitment Part I There are a countless amount of articles and books written about love and commitment and yet the world is still lacking in both departments. People love to talk about these things because they sound like something we all want, however talk is all we do. Honestly we don't want love in the truest sense of the word, we want love in the unrealistic media driven sense. We believe that love is supposed to be this magical feeling that we have that it is supposed to come into our lives and lead us into the sunset on our white horse and when things don't happen that way, we begin to hypothesize that the feeling that we had must not have been love. So I pose the question, are married people breaking their covenants because they never loved each other, or because they lacked the more important attribute of commitment? In trying to figure out the answer to this question, I discovered the many definitions to the word love. If you put ten people in a room together and asked them to define love, odds are you would not get the same definition from them. Maybe that is the underlying problem, we don't truly know what love is and yet we claim to have it. If you ask an Atheist if he believed in love, he would say yes. If you asked a Christian if he believed in love, he would also say yes. However if you asked a Christian if the Atheist truly believed in love, he would probably say no because true love can not be found outside of God. Which leads me to the conclusion that even if the entire world believed in love, many of us don't believe that everyone truly has love. So what is love? Honestly, it depends on which definition you want to use or which criteria best meets your personal agenda. Merriam-Webster defines love in this manner,"A strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties (maternal love for a child). An attraction based on sexual desire. An affection and tenderness felt by lovers. An affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests. An assurance of affection. A warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion. The object of attachment, devotion, or admiration. An Unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another. The fatherly concern of God for humankind. Brotherly concern for others. And last but not least a person's adoration of God." As we see, there is not a shortage of definitions for the word and in a world with billions of people who have definitions of love outside of what the dictionary says, we begin to mixup a perfect cocktail for chaos. How can couples be successful in love when both parties define love in different ways? Can you truly have something and not agree upon the definition? I am no expert on the topic so I just pose the questions, maybe we can have love and define it differently, I just cannot see it in my finite wisdom. I examine the world around me falling apart and I cannot understand how people who believe in love could allow these horrible things to happen to their marriages. So much more can be said about love and yet we have not even touched commitment but then again, how can you be committed to something without first knowing what you are committed to?