Valentine's Day coming up quickly

Valentine's Day is Monday. Time is running short to make an Valentine's Day impression on the ones you love.

Men, let me give you some unsolicited advice. There are three days a year, four if you are married, you need to show up and demonstrate you care: birthday, Christmas, anniversary if married and Valentine's Day. Yes, I know those flowers die. Doesn't matter. Flowers die, your truck will rust out, show the one you love you care about them. Anyway, back to the column.

The one truth that everyone knows, but few will admit, is that relationships are hard. Friendship, dating, marriage, parenting -- every relationship of value is hard. Romantic and marriage relationship especially. Thankfully the Bible says a lot about every type of relationship you have.

One of the most famous Bible passages is the love chapter from 1 Corinthians 13. Great chapter, undoubtedly appropriate for weddings but speaks to a broader audience than bride and groom. The passage was originally written to a church instructing them how men and women saved by grace were to love each other. Not a romantic love but an active love; caring for others in a similar way that God cared for them. There are many principles in the chapter but two big critical ideas.

First, love is active. We live in a culture that describes love as passive. "I fell in love." "If love was meant to be, it will happen." Great sentiments, but not true.

Nothing in this life thrives when left to its own. Untended gardens grow weeds. Unmaintained cars break down. Passively trying to love someone without actively demonstrating you care for them will destroy that relationship. Love that causes the one loving and the one being loved to thrive is active.

Second, active love is demonstrated in the right context. You cannot love someone -- spouse, child, parent, friend -- and not demonstrate that. Love is not complete until it is shown. Love, though, must be displayed in a way that the one being loved sees and hears. Some people experience love by spending time with them. Others by appropriate touch. Others still through words of affirmation or by doing things for them. Everyone is different, so is how they know they are loved.

Active love regularly demonstrated in the right context reveals that you are attempting to know and love the most important people in your life. To be known and loved is like being loved by God, who knows you more intimately than you know yourself.