Chapman - God speaks your love language: how to express and experience Gods love

Copyright 2002, 2009, 2018 by GARY CHAPMAN

Previously published as The Love Languages of God

Some details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

All Scripture quotation, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version.

Edited by Elizabeth Cody Newenhuyse
Author photo: P. S. Photography
Interior design: Ragont Design
Cover design: Studio Gearbox and Erik M. Peterson
Front cover photo of person copyright by Dougal Waters/Getty Images (200427789-001). All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Chapman, Gary D., 1938- author.

Title: God speaks your love language : how to experience and express Gods love / Gary Chapman.

Other titles: Love languages of God

Description: Chicago : Moody Publishers, 2018. | Previously published as The Love Languages of God. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018028519 (print) | LCCN 2018031951 (ebook) | ISBN 9780802497390 (ebook) | ISBN 9780802418593 (alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Love--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Classification: LCC BV4639 (ebook) | LCC BV4639 .C425 2018 (print) | DDC 248.4--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018028519

ISBN: 978-0-8024-1859-3

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To my sister, Sandra Lane Benfield, who loved God as intensely as anyone I have ever known and expressed it by serving others. Though younger than I, she beat me to the finish line. I pray that my love will be as transparent as hers.

D o you believe that God loves you? You, personally? We hear it all the time: God loves you. God is love. Some of us readily embrace that truth. Others struggle with the idea.

I think of Rachel, my first counseling appointment of the day, and I felt like crying when I heard her story. Her father had committed suicide when she was thirteen. Her brother was killed in Afghanistan. Six months previously, her husband had left her for another woman. She and her two small children were living with her mother. I felt like crying but Rachel wasnt crying. In fact, she was vibrant, almost radiant.

Assuming she was in denial of her grief, I said, You must feel very rejected by your husband.

I did at first, but Ive come to realize that my husband is not running from me. He is running from himself. He is a very unhappy man. I think he believed that our marriage would make him happy, but you and I both know that only God can make a person truly happy.

I wondered if Rachel was trying to spiritualize her pain, so I said, You have been through a lot in your life: your fathers death, your brothers death, your husbands departure. How can you be so strong in your faith?

For one reason, she said. I know that God loves me, so no matter what, He is always there for me.

How can you be so sure? I asked.

Its a personal thing. Every morning I give the day to God and ask Him to lead me. I read a chapter in the Bible and listen to what He says to me. God and I are very close. Thats the only way I can make it.

Later the same day I had an appointment with Regina. Her parents had divorced when she was ten years old. She saw her father only twice after the divorce: once at her high school graduation and again at her younger sisters funeral. Her sister had been killed in an auto accident at the age of twenty-one. Regina had been married and divorced three times; the longest of her marriages had lasted two and a half years. She was in my office because she was contemplating a fourth marriage. Her mother had asked that she talk with me before she married again.

I dont know if I should do this or not, Regina said. I dont want to grow old alone, but I dont have a very good track record with marriage. I feel like a loser. My mother keeps telling me that God loves me and has a plan for my life. Right now I dont feel Gods love, and I think I must have missed the plan. Im not even sure there is a God.

Two women, each having experienced enough pain for a lifetime. One feels deeply loved by God; the other feels empty. Why do some people claim to experience Gods love very deeply, while others feel so distant from God that they are unsure He even exists?

Of course, many of us fall somewhere between Rachel and Regina. Sometimes the love of God seems very real and very near to us. Other days Gods love feels like empty words, not a living, treasured truth.

And still others among us see God as a stern and distant father who delights in punishing His children.

Why do some of us struggle to feel Gods love? I believe that the answer lies in the nature of love itself. Love is not a solo experience. Love requires both a lover and a responder. If God is the divine lover, why do not all His creatures feel His love? Perhaps its because some are looking in the wrong direction.

So many things influence our response to God: culture, family background, life experiences (good and bad), the teachings of our religion. But love is a matter of the heart, the soulnot ritual or religion or what our families or peers do. And each of us expresses and understands love differentlyincluding Gods love. Each of us speaks and understands love differently.

I am convinced that each of us has a primary love language, and when we listen to God in our heart language, we will experience His love most intimately. I am also convinced that God speaks each persons love language fluently. After all, He created us. He formed us in our distinct individuality. Why would He not speak to each of us in our own language?

How does this work? Perhaps this is best understood by examining how love works in human relationships.

In other volumes, I have dealt with the problem of not hearing love in our own language. My clinical research has revealed that a variety of love languages exist. Thus, if parents dont speak their childs primary love language, the child will not feel loved, regardless of how sincere the parents may be. The key is learning the primary love language of a child and speaking it regularly. The same principle is true in marriage. If a husband doesnt speak his wifes love language, she wont feel lovedand her need for love will go unfulfilled.