Can You Love Someone and Not Like Them?

Is it possible to love someone and not like them? If you ask the question of someone who equates love with feelings the answer is no. But if you ask someone who understands love far exceeds anything one could ever feel, good or bad, the answer is sure to be yes. Love is much, much more than an emotional experience. 

If given enough time, relationship between any two people is going to experience a full range of emotions. We are emotional creatures and respond to stimuli emotionally. If your significant other disrespects you then feelings of anger are likely to develop even if you choose not to demonstrate them. Emotions are common to all of us and their arrival in our life is simply due to what we see, hear, feel, smell or even taste! Who hasn't been emotionally moved by a good piece of chocolate? You cannot stop the wind nor will you cease to feel emotion; this of course being true of those who are healthy.

Love supersedes our emotions and should never be prisoner to them. Love may be accompanied by emotions but need not be so. Love is a choice and involves action on our part. Love is intentional. We choose to love by being something such as patient, kind, gentle, respectful, forgiving, etc. In each case we make a choice to demonstrate love by giving something of ourself to the object of our affection. True love doesn't wait for an emotional reason to show up. True, genuine love shows up simply because the one giving love has decided to do so. This is the kind of love Christ had for each Christian when He died on the cross for our sins. Romans 5:8 says, "God shows His love to us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." God did not wait for us to love Him but rather chose to love us in spite of who we were at the time of His sacrifice for our sins. Isn't that the most perfect definition of true love, whether it be of the God, brotherly or romantic kind? True love is given freely in spite of, or even absent of, any reason...emotional or otherwise. I can love you even when I may not, due to the emotions of the moment, like you!

Choose to love!

James