Why True Love Takes Time

We live in a generation that admires fast things. Fast food, fast cars, and unfortunately some believe in fast love. The truth however is that the process of love can not be hurried. Those who do so are often scarred permanently by the inaccuracy of the love choices made. This is why love must be patient and not urgent. It is not uncommon to see a person who met you yesterday, asks you out today and wants to marry you tomorrow. No matter how persuasive such crash lovers are, we must not be coerced into rushing into any love scenario without taking adequate time to confirm the accuracy of our choice. When it comes to love, it is better to be late than to be sorry. Why does real love take time?

1. It takes time for authentic friendships to develop: Over time you would have heard me say that great marriages grow on the soil of great friendships. Many often place spiritual guidance in love over established friendships. It is my opinion that a divinely hand picked lover will fail to deliver if friendship is not in place. Conversely, even if you did not have a prophetic apparition and you settled for your best friend, you are most likely to be successful in love. I have often heard people say that you can never know the true colours of a person until you marry them, but I beg to disagree. For you to be finding out the real nature of your lover in marriage, it must be that extensive time was not devoted to the friendship. It is my personal experience that there have been no surprises in the person I married because we were best of friends for about 7years before we started courting, marriage to her, therefore, has not yielded surprises to me in any way. Owing to this I have become an advocate of long friendships, short courtships and early marriages.

2. It takes time to allow lust to wear off: Lust can never stand the test of time. Lust cannot last. The reason why we must subject every claim of love to extensive time is to allow lust to wear off. Any love that disintegrates with time was actually lust in disguise. True love waits and is not diminished with time. Many have yielded to the lustful proposal of some, only to find their attitude change rapidly after sexual encounters. Don’t be fooled the consummation of lust often leads to the death of the relationship. Never ever commit to lust, it will never last.

3. It takes time to know who a person is: The greatest foundation you can give your love life is sound knowledge and understanding of who your partner is. However, knowing a person takes time. I belong to the school of thought that believes that man is a soul possessing spirit enclosed in a body. Each aspect of man, spirit, soul and body must be intelligently investigated before we can boldly say we know a person. In reality, getting to know a singular section of a tripartite being can take weeks or even months. This is why love must take time, it can not be based upon assumption. Those who circumvent this principle and get emotionally involved often pay for it dearly.

4. It takes time to confirm a person’s origin or antecedents: Everyone who claims to love us is coming from somewhere. We must not be too quick to integrate a stranger into our world, without properly investigating where they are coming from. For instance, you might come across a so-called single, middle-aged, well to do professional who is claiming to love you. Before you get excited, you might have to find out why such an admirable, eligible and desirable person is still single. The reality could be that their family is outside the country and they’re just seeking a sexual fling. Everybody is coming from somewhere and except you are comfortable with their history, you might not want to be a part of their destiny.

5. It takes time to prove character: Anybody can be nice for a few moments because they seek your hand in love. The character however is consistent behaviour over an extended period of time. Good character is the cornerstone of excellent relationships. Looks will change, feelings will fluctuate, and resources may be spent but only character remains the same. We must not be bamboozled by the temporary display of niceness, we should only be moved by its consistency over time

6. It takes time to be certain about what you feel: Feelings change. There were people we thought we loved yesterday, who mean absolutely nothing to us today. The fact that our feelings exist doesn’t mean we should rush into love, we should only do so if our feelings persist. Not every feeling that existed, persisted. This is why we shouldn’t commit in the heat of our passion for another, we may wake up and find out that our feelings have changed. This is why we must give our feelings the time it needs to be certain. If we don’t do this we are most likely to hurt a lot of people due to the evaporation of our feelings for them. Everything we feel for another isn’t love. We must take time to be sure. What you feel may be respect, likeness, infatuation, lust, just to mention but a few but the only feeling worth acting upon is love.

The summary of our thesis is that because real love takes time, true love has to wait. Of course, there is the danger of waiting forever. It is wisdom to know when the probation period is over, once we are sure of who we have and what we feel, we must decisively establish our love lives and hopefully never look back. Love is indeed patient and not urgent.

THE GREATEST IS LOVE.