I Love You Like A Love Song Baby

My pre-teens, translate six year olds, are really into music. They have been listening to Christian music both hymns and contemporary since they were born and we try to expose them to as much Christian music as we can listening to the radio and playing CD’s in the car and at home. They also have grown up listening to a lot of secular music, my wife and I love 80’s rock and roll and yes even some country music. We for the most part are able to control what they listen to when we are around but we are not always around and so sometimes they get exposed to things that we are not really happy about. Unfortunately my son is gaga over Lady Gaga. There are a few other younger singers that we are not too pleased with either like Justine Bieber, sorry but I just don’t get how he is popular. One singer though that we kind of like because she was on Disney Channel for so long is Selena Gomez. She has now transitioned to making CDs and my kids are always listening to her songs. The latest and most popular of her songs is entitled “Love You Like A Love Song.” The main chorus in the song is “I, I love you like a long song, baby.” It is very catchy and I find myself walking around the house repeating the chorus.
When I stopped to think about it I realized I didn’t really know what that meant. So I went and looked up the lyrics on line. Most of the song is the chorus repeated over and over again, but there are two verses and a bridge that surround the chorus. So I thought well the lyrics will explain it right? Well, they do, but I am not so sure I like the explanation. I don’t have a problem with the lyrics I just think they are superficial, like I was supposed to expect anything else from a pop song. If you haven’t heard the lyrics, the first verse goes like this, “It’s been said and done Every beautiful thought’s been already sung And I guess right now here’s another one So your melody will play on and on, with the best of ‘em You are beautiful, like a dream come alive, incredible A centerfold miracle, lyrical You’ve saved my life again And I want you to know baby.” And then she transitions into the chorus.” Okay nothing offensive, which is a plus compared to some of them out there. Basically she is saying she looks upon him as a beautiful love song come alive in her life, heck I could even hear those lines included in wedding vows, not any wedding I would perform, but I could see it done.
So what’s my problem if they are not objectionable? Well my problem is not in what is there, but in what is not there. If the words of the lyrics are the basis for love, then that love is probably not going to last very long. Love songs come and go. In other words new ones are always replacing them. The lyrics even contain the line, “So your melody will play on and on, with the best of em.” So in other words there are other love songs and maybe other people as well. I know I am nit picking and for crying out loud it’s a pop song by a teenage girl. My goal is not to put down Selena Gomez, so far in my book she is a nice girl.
The problem is not Gomez and it’s not the song, it’s the fact that many people’s idea of love is as superficial as this song and most other pop songs about love. I run into the problem a lot when I sit down with young couples who are getting married. They are in love, he or she is perfect, they are that love song. And so I ask them how they met and what they like to do together and its’ always so wonderful. I usually let them go on for awhile about how wonderful it is and then I stop them and ask, so what are you going to do when it’s not so wonderful? What are you going to do when you realize that she or he is not perfect, matter of fact there are a lot of things about them that just flat irritate you? What are you going to do when the finances fall apart, when you can’t agree on how to raise the kids, when your mother-in-law drives you nuts? What are you going to do when the music stops?
Most of us who have been married for awhile realize that no matter how much we love our spouse, those things are going to happen. Every marriage that I have been around has gone through some sort of trial at some point and some have even been through the fire once or twice. So what are you going to do when that happens? Unfortunately we live in a society where too many people love their spouses like a love song by Selena Gomez. Those marriages usually fall apart. They have nothing to hold them together except some emotions, some good feelings. Loving someone like a love song is great when you are a teenage girl in love with a cute teenage boy, but it doesn’t work when you are an adult and married to a real person who has real faults just like you do. Very quickly that pop love song becomes a Mark Chesnutt country song with the words, “I’m going through the big D and I don’t mean Dallas.” I guess somewhere we need to find a balance between pop love songs where every relationship is perfect and country songs where every relationship ends in divorce.
As I said before my problem is not what is in the lyrics but what is not in the lyrics. What is not in the lyrics is the word commitment. Real love always involves commitment, because real love is more than an emotion it’s an action, it’s a way of living. When you love someone you don’t just feel good about them, you do things for them, you care for them, you support them, and you are there for them through thick and thin. Real love stays when the chips are down. Real love forgives, builds up and protects.
When I tell young couples that sometimes they look at me like I just took their CD out of the player and broke it in half. When I see that look I know I have done my job. I have introduced them to reality. If there is no C word there will no doubt be a D word somewhere in their future.
When I realize I have their attention and I sense they are a little worried I introduce them to another C word, Christ. Christ is the big C word because it is from him that we get the strength to be committed to each other. As sinners we humans had offended God in so many ways I don’t have time to name them. God had every right to just get rid of us, but in spite of all of our sin God continued to love us, he continued to be committed to us. The greatness of that commitment was demonstrated in his sending of his Son Jesus Christ to save us. Christ showed that commitment to us by going to the cross and dying for us, even suffering the pains of hell for us. Bottom line He saved us from eternal destruction because he loved us with real love, committed love. As believers in Christ we are now called to love others, especially our spouses, the same way. We love others because Christ first loved us. The chorus “I love you like a love song baby,” although not objectionable is so weak that it is pitiful and certainly not the basis for a real relationship. No real love, committed love that lasts says, “I love you like Christ loved me, baby.” Maybe it’s not as catchy but it’s the type of love you need in reality.

Pastor Fred