Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.
– Rollo May
If you put an artist and an accountant in a room and you asked them to solve a problem, they would have a difficult time. The artist would bring his or her passionate, spontaneous, outside of the box thinking and freestyle communication to the table. The accountant would use their precise, linear, inside the box analysis and communication to the table. Neither language is wrong or better. They are just different and unique, like you and me. God made every person with their unique skills, talents, and language to fulfill a specific role in His forever plan. However, when you do not understand what language you use to communicate with God and others, you can feel alone and defective. These emotions are the deception of the enemy, but they are still real. The devil inflates your insecurities by reciting your frustration in his whispers, “they are not listening to you because they do not value you.”
You may be wondering what knowing your language has to do with your relationship with God. The answer is everything. To know you are heard, loved, and understood by God, you need to know your love language. Likewise, to understand and connect with others, you need to discern their love language. The premise of love languages is explained in Gary Chapman’s book, The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Spouse. Gary, a marriage counselor for over 30 years, states every person has a primary love language.
Five love languages:
1. Meaningful touch – from touching their cheek to holding hands to making love
2. Words of affirmation letting your mate know they are valued and cherished
3. Acts of service
4. Quality time—undivided attention and eye contact
5. Gifts
For years I heard and read how Jesus died for me and how he loves me. I was grateful, but I struggled to truly know Jesus loved me in my heart because of my earthly love experiences. I did not realize I had adopted the world’s definition of love where words and actions do not match. I believed I had to earn my worthiness to be loved through serving others, which centered around touch. The enemy used my past pain and scars to fuel my fears of being unlovable and abandoned again.
As I continued to grow in Christ, I grew a deeper understanding of the difference between the substance of God’s pure love and the world’s fleeting love. In my growth, God brought Gary Chapman’s book about love languages to my attention. While reading the book, I paused and wrote my love languages in my communication order. After writing my first two languages, my heart saw the truth in black and white. Touch was my first love language, and words were my second. Touch was my hurdle in trusting Jesus loved me in my mind and heart because I could not feel his physical touch. Even though I had heard and read the loving words of God and Jesus, I needed to experience His touch through the substance of His pure love. I went back and studied how Jesus connected with people through the substance of God’s love and truth before he healed or touched them. In my studies, I came to trust and know the words of Jesus were the door and extension to his loving touch throughout the Bible. At last, I began to receive all of the pure love, goodness, equality, justice, forgiveness, grace, and mercy of His love in my heart and spirit through my love languages. Now I could hear him, and now I know Jesus loves me.
Discovering my two primary love languages brought a new understanding of the painful worldly love relationships I had endured over the years. Is it any wonder the ways I experienced and understood the world’s definition of love were the exact ways the enemy wounded me? The devil had known my love languages before I did, and he used them against me. The devil knows your love languages too, and he will not hesitate to use them to destroy you as well. The sooner you know your love language, the sooner you will know God at a deeper level. Your knowledge in the hands of the Holy Spirit opens your eyes and heart to the substance of the love of God throughout His word. You will come to know beyond a shadow of a doubt you are loved by God because you can now hear Him in your native love language. God tells us,
“so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:11 NIV
