How is your relationship with your spouse, with your children, with your parents, or with a brother or sister? Too often we don't know how to show our love to the one we seek to love. Dr. Gary Chapman joins Charles Morris, offering help in expressing the languages of love and in understanding the love that Jesus shows to us.
The Five Love Languages (Part 2) w/Gary Chapman
Welcome to Haven Today. I’m Charles Morris telling the great story that’s all about Jesus. It speaks volumes, how you show your love in marriage. If we could just understand each other’s unique needs better. I think you can and you’ll learn more in the next few minutes. Think about that also from another direction, think about how Jesus loves us. Well, we’re going to look at it from both sides in the next few minutes as we’re joined by Dr. Gary Chapman and a program called “The Five Love Languages”. We’re also going to talk about love languages being employed in our family, in our friendships and also in the workplace. If you missed our Valentine’s Day program with Gary we have that up on our website along with a short video where in less than 2 minutes this well-known Christian counselor presents the 5 love languages. But be careful, because after seeing that you’re going to want to listen to the longer interview. We also have the bestselling book, ‘The Five Love Languages” as our way of saying thanks for making a financial gift to Haven Today. And a special thanks to everyone who gives above the suggested gift amount. You could go online at haventoday.org or call 1-800-654-2836. I’ll repeat that contact information a little later in the program. Now let’s get started with music based on 1 Corinthians 13, the “love chapter”, the group is Jericho Road and they sing, “What Matters Most”.
Song: What Matters Most
Performed by: Jericho Road
Welcome back again to Haven Today. I’m Charles Morris and thank you for being with me. I’m in Southern California and on the line with us again today from, well, Winston-Salem, North Carolina is my brother in the Lord Dr. Gary Chapman who wrote that wonderful book “The Five Love Languages: how to express commitment to your mate”. And Gary, welcome back to Haven Today.
GC: Well, thank you Charles. Good to be with you again.
CM: Wow. I just, I learned a lot yesterday.
GC: Well, good!
CM: And I’ve been through your book, a lot of people have been through your book but still, the fact that we can learn a little bit more on how to love other people – and for a Christian that’s very important, isn’t it?
GC: It is because Jesus once said, “This is the way that they will know you love me, by the way you love each other.” And Charles, maybe that’s why we haven’t always been identified as Christians, because maybe they don’t always see love in us, you know?
Cm: You mean Christians don’t always get along? And they don’t always share the love of Christ with other people?
GC: You know, I’ve spent the bulk of my time trying to help couples, you know, love each other and many of them are Christians
CM: Yes
GC: and many of them are not effective at loving each other. One of the things I really do like to emphasize to married couples, Charles is that love is a choice. We make that choice every day. It does not begin with a feeling; it begins with a choice that I’m going to look out for my spouse’s interest. I’m going to do something for their benefit. But when you do it touches their emotions so there is an emotional element but the emotion is the response to the love. It doesn’t begin with that. Because sometimes we think because the in-love experience, you know the early stages of our relationship-
CM: Yes, yes
GC: we think that’s going to carry us through. Well, we’ve studied that. The average life span of the “obsession” is 2 years. We come down off the high and if we don’t learn how to speak the other person’s love language then the love tank gets empty and our differences emerge and we find ourselves arguing with each other. And you and I both have encountered people you know, 2, 3, 4 years into marriage asking themselves, “Why did we get married? We don’t even like each other?”
Cm: That’s right, it’s gone.
GC: You know, all the emotions are gone and the differences emerge. So, you know what we’re talking about is really key. I believe it could save thousands of marriages if people could understand the concept of the 5 love languages and then learn how to apply it in their marriage.
CM: Well, you know, I ‘m out here in Hollywood. Our ministry is getting ready to have its 74th birthday. Our building was actually in Hollywood for many years. You see that in the Hollywood community so much, the infatuation, the glamour, the glitz and then you know, sometimes it’s even a few weeks and it’s over.
GC: Yes
CM: They’re filing for divorce.
GC: Yes
CM: they’re going to try it again with someone else. That’s not what you’re talking about in love is it Gary?
GC: No because what happens Charles when people go from one person to another person, every time they get married the divorce rate gets higher. You know, first marriages it’s now about 40-45%, second marriages it’s 60%, third marriages it’s 75%. Obviously the answer is not, you know a new mate, the answer is learning how to love the person to whom you’re now married. And that’s what we’re trying to do, help people to understand that the “in love” experience is temporary but intentional love goes on for a lifetime and when you learn how to express it in a positive way, namely the language of your spouse, they feel your love the emotional warmth remains in the marriage and then you can work out your conflicts. You can work out the differences. Every couple has differences, you know?
CM: Sure
GC: Some couples learn to work them out, listen to each other, negotiate, find answers that both of them feel are acceptable and then other couples simply argue with each other, put each other down and then, you know, after a while they figure, “I don’t need this, you know? They just keep, you know?”
CM: Right
GC: and they end up jumping ship and going with somebody else. But they’re going to have to learn the same lesson there. You may as well learn it where you are.
CM: Well, that’s right, that’s right. You know, for someone who didn’t join us on our last time that we were together, which was Valentine’s Day and they’re not one of the people who have read your book or it’s been a while since they’ve read your book, let’s run through those 5 languages again. And I know quality time is right there up at the top but all 5 are pretty much equally spread, aren’t they?
GC: Yes they are and there’s no particular order. Any one of these could be a person’s primary love language. One is quality time by which I mean you give the person your undivided attention, you know your eye contact, you’re listening to them, you’re trying to understand what’s going on inside of them. Or it doesn’t have to be conversation. That’s just one of the dialects. You could, it could be, you know going out to the symphony together but the point of going is not to hear the symphony. The point of going is that you want to be together. So that’s quality time. Second is physical touch. Physical touch is a powerful communicator of love. Holding hands and kissing and embracing in the context of marriage, the whole sexual aspect of marriage. Then there’s acts of service, doing something for the other person that you know that they would like for you to do. And all you have to do to discover that is simply listen because they’re telling you what they would want you to do.
CM: Yes, yes
GC: Then there’s gifts. Giving of the gift communicates you were thinking of them. And then there’s words of affirmation, verbally affirming them. It can be affirming them for something that they did for you. You can affirm their personality, you know, “I like that you’re so optimistic about life.”
CM: Yes
GC: You can affirm the way they look, “you know you really look sharp in that outfit.” But it’s usually using words to affirm them. And out of the 5 each of us has a primary love language and seldom does a husband and wife have the same language so you have to learn to speak the other person’s language.
CM: Is that a guarantee, Gary for a successful marriage if both have the same love language?
GC: Well, it makes life a lot easier because just by nature they’re speaking each other’s language. But even, here’s what I’ve found Charles, even if they have the same love language they will have different dialects. So, you know she will want certain kinds of gifts for example that will really speak to her, or certain acts of service will speak more deeply than others. That’s why I suggest to a person for example, if your spouse’s language is acts of service, not only get them to make a list of things they would appreciate but tell you the order of importance. That way you can spend your energy in the thing that’s most meaningful to them.
CM: Sure, yes. Well, you know I see it in my own marriage and I don’t know about yours but affirmation, that’s my love language. My wife is gifts, giving gifts, receiving gifts. I mean, the amount of emotional energy and time that she spends at Christmas, I finally got her to get started on the internet so now she buys most of her gifts on the internet because otherwise Christmastime she was driving herself ragged just going from place to place, mall to mall making sure she had exactly the right gift but you know what? She needed to do that.
GC: Yes, that –
CM: And our kids appreciate it, our grandchildren appreciate that from her as well. She appreciates receiving that especially from me so I’ve had to learn that.
GC: Yeah and for some, some people, some of these languages are difficult. You know if you grew up and you never bought a lot of gifts and it just didn’t mean a whole lot to you then it’s with effort that you learn how to give gifts
CM: Yes, yes that’s right. Well, let’s – and by the way if somebody just joined us let me tell them, you’re listening to Haven Today, Dr. Gary Chapman is on with us and “The Five Love Languages: How to express heartfelt commitment”. We’re talking about a mate but we’re also talking about other kind of circumstances as well like with children and children have these different love languages, don’t they?
GC: They do, in fact you mentioned grandchildren, I have 2. I have a little girl who is 9 and a little grandson who is 6 and they have different love languages. His love language is physical touch. From the time he was very, very young he would just, you know, want me to hold him and wrestle with him and you know, physically be involved with him. And that’s another love language. Her love language is quality time. She will say, “Papa, come in my room. I want to show you something.” You know, she wants my undivided attention.
CM: Yes
GC: And the same thing was true with our children, you know, when they were young. And here’s the really key issue with children here Charles that if the child feels loved by the parent you will have much less misbehavior of that child. A lot of the misbehavior of children grows out of feeling unloved. All parents are sincere, they’re loving their children but not all children feel loved because they’re not necessarily speaking the right language. Now I do, I do want to add this Charles, I’m not suggesting that parents speak only the primary love language of the child. What I am suggesting is you give them heavy doses of the primary and then you sprinkle in the other 4. We want the child to learn how to receive love in all 5 languages and how to give love in all 5 languages. That’s the ideal. Imagine what would happen if children of this generation could grow up learning how to receive and give love in all 5 languages. I mean, in a generation relationships could be healed.
CM: Wow, yes and the world could be a much better place. Let’s talk about how, then, we can relate to the language that God speaks to us in. And we’ve talked about this ,you and I have, how God relates to us in these 5 love languages and then others that we may not even know about but especially these 5 equally. How can we relate the love that comes through God the Father and then God the Son Jesus, how can we relate that to our children?
GC: Well, you know love is always, or at least it’s designed to be a reciprocal relationship. God loves us unconditionally and when we respond to God and put our faith in Christ, we are reciprocating his love. You know John said, “We love God because he first loved us.”
CM: Yes
GC: And so we have a love relationship with God. And on the human level we reflect that when we love our children, when we love our spouse, when we love our neighbor or our co-worker, expressing love and appreciation to them, we are reflecting the love of God. I like to, I like to say that we are channels of God’s love, he pours his love into us, Romans chapter 5, and then we pour that love out to other people. God uses individuals to express love. His intention is that parents will be the primary lovers of children and then children will learn how to love their parents, they will reciprocate. Then we can take that outside the family and share it with t eh world at large. So it all starts in the family, husbands and wives learning how to love each other effectively, learning how to love their children effectively, the children learning how to love their parents and then the family takes love outside of that context.
CM: I’m thinking, Gary about how this can relate as well to somebody just on the job, they’re working and let’s say their a believer in Christ, the love of Christ has filled them, they know Jesus as their Savior but in such a profound way that they want to share the love of Christ with others. Well, channeling is the word you’re using, you used a moment ago, this could actually do a lot in our work environment, couldn’t it?
GC: I think Charles what happens is, if we’re sensitive, we reach out to express love and appreciation to people who work with us, that creates an emotional climate where they are very likely to turn to us with questions about spiritual matters because they feel close to us, they feel trusted by us because we’re reaching out to love them. You know again Jesus said that this is the way they can tell that we are Christians, by the way we love each other.
CM: Yes, 1 John
GC: So if we reach out in love to our coworkers we are meeting a deep need for them. Charles, I was talking with a guy not long ago, he had worked with a company for 20 years and he said to me after he heard this lecture, he said to me, “You know I’ve worked here for 20 years. I think I’ve been creative, I think I’ve made a contribution to the company but I can’t remember in 20 years ever hearing anyone express words of appreciation to me.” And it was obvious to me that words of affirmation was his primary language.
CM: Yes
GC: And for 20 years he worked, he was committed but he never got the affirmation verbally. And tears were in his eyes when he was talking to me. And I was a total outsider but he knew because of the lecture that he could share that with me. So the work climate could be greatly enhanced if we learned how to speak each other’s love language, and in the workplace we would typically call it appreciation rather than love –
CM: Yes
GC: But it’s meeting that same need. It’s emotionally communicating to another person you care about them; you appreciate what they’re doing.
CM: I’m going to put you on the spot here but can you think of an example where you’ve seen either a marriage saved or you know a couple gets back together or maybe in some other relationship, maybe with a child or even in the workplace, where you’ve just seen the Lord really work once someone learned they needed to look for how to show love to another?
GC: Charles I could give you lots of examples so I’ll just give you one. A couple traveled 400 miles to come to my marriage seminar and the husband said to me, “Dr. Chapman,” he said, “have you got a moment? I’d like to share our story with you.” And I said, “All right”. He said, “We’ve been married 30 years and to be very honest with you the last 20 years have been miserable.” He said, “In fact if you want to know how bad our marriage has been, we haven’t taken a vacation together in 20 years. We take separate vacations because we don’t like to be with each other.” He said, “We have lived in the same house, we try to be civil, that’s about all it’s been.” He said, “About a year ago, I shared with a friend of mine how miserable I was. He went into his house, came back out with your book, ‘The Five Love Languages’. He said, ‘read this book. It’ll help you.’” He said, “I went home. I said, ‘OK’ I went home and I read the book. He said it was like the lights came on. And he said, “I thought, ‘Man! Why didn’t I have this book 20 years ago?’” He said, “I gave the book to my wife and I just said to her, ‘Here’s a book that I read that I found fascinating. When you get a chance would you mind reading it and just tell me what you think about it?’” He said, “Two weeks later she had read the book and she said to me, or I said to her, ‘What did you think about it?’ She said, ‘I think if we’d had this book 20 years ago our marriage would have been altogether different.’” He said, “You know I had the same thought.” He said, “I want to ask you a question. Do you think it would help if we tried now?” And she said, “We don’t have anything to lose.” And he said, “Does that mean you’re willing?” And she said, “Yeah, I’ll try.” He said, “So we discussed our love languages and we started speaking each other’s language.” He said, “Our goal was once a week to speak each other’s language.” He said, “IF anyone had told me that in 2 months I would have love feelings for her again I would never have believed it.” And she spoke up and said, “IF anyone had told me I would ever have love feelings for him again I would have said it can’t happen.” She said, “Too much has, you know, gone wrong in our marriage.” She said, “But I do.” And he said, “Dr. Chapman we drove up here together today, 400 miles and we enjoy being with each other now.” He said, “In fact, this summer we took our first vacation together in 20 years.”
CM: Praise God!
GC: Yeah, what happens is, when you chose to speak the language you touch the heart of the other person and emotions, warm emotions are created and when they speak your language you begin to feel warmly toward them and you create a totally different atmosphere in the marriage.
CM: Gary, there are a lot of people listening right now to you and they need to hear what you’ve been telling us. I needed to hear it and thank you. But I would like to ask you to just pray for people listening that a marriage would be saved, a relationship will be, that’s broken right now will be repaired, and that Jesus Christ would be able to enter into some hearts and this love would just overflow in all of us. Would you mind leading us in prayer?
GC: I’d be happy to Charles.
Father, we acknowledge your presence. You know what we’re talking about, you know the people, the individuals who are listening. You know those who are hurting because they don’t feel loved either by parents or by a spouse and I pray that you would give them the vision of what could happen if they chose to become a lover, if they reach out to you and ask that you’d pour your love into their hearts and let them be your agent for expressing it to their spouse or to their child or to their parent. And I pray Father that you would bring healing to those relationships. I pray that you would remind them that we don’t sit around waiting to be loved, because you already loved us we can reach out and initiate love to others. And so I pray that you would bring healing in marriage relationships and healing between parent and child. And I ask Father that your Spirit would be active in the hearts and minds of our listeners, giving them hope as to the power of love. In the name of Christ I pray, amen.
CM: thanks Gary for praying with us here on a Haven Today called, “The Five Love Languages”. Little did Gary Chapman know when he put down on paper what he was picking up after years of counseling that his book, “The Five Love Languages” would be so well received. More than 4 million copies later we have the book in our warehouse and we’d like to send you a copy as our thanks for your gift to Haven Today. There are a lot of broken and breaking down relationships today, marriages, families, friendships, the workplace, and Gary’s book could help give you insight into how to speak someone else’s love language and not just your own. Along with the book we’ll send you a CD of the interviews that we’ve had with Gary Chapman. You can just go online at haventoday.org. That’s one word, h.a.v.e.n.t.o.d.a.y, haventoday.org. Or call us, toll free in North America, 1-800-654-2836, that’s 1-800-654-2836. Also, have you thought about joining me in reading the Bible in 90 days? We still have the large print NIV hardback that includes markers on where to start and stop each day as you go through God’s Word cover to cover in less than 3 months. And we also have “The Essential Bible Companion”, 2 pages on every book of the Bible, full color charts and timelines, background that will help you understand more in reading all the way through the Bible. You’ve thought about it, well this is a way to actually do it. Just visit us to learn more at haventoday.org or call 1-800-65-HAVEN to get a copy of the Bible and “The Essential Bible Companion”. I’m Charles Morris. Thanks for being with me and Gary Chapman. Would you come back again next time when again we’ll be sharing the greatest story ever told? And it’s all about Jesus and we’ll do it together here on Haven Today.
