How often have you been rolling down the highway with a loved one or a group of friends when someone initiated the slug bug game? You know the game when you see a Volkswagen bug and you call out "slug bug" and then punch everybody else in your surrounding proximity. I think the slug bug game, sometimes called punch buggy, probably began out of somebody’s extreme boredom. Regardless of how the game started, it may remind you of many couples who are always at odds with each other, always bickering, and seemingly, always fighting over trivial issues. It seems that many couples have gotten stuck in a continuous relational slug bug match.
So what happened? Somewhere in their marriage or relationship they lost loves focus, (they traded it in on a YouGo). I Love You is an outward expression, love is the engagement of selfless desires, an initiation of external giving, a decision of otherness focus. We all believe in love, yet often times our own behaviors exhibit love deficiency. We can choose to believe our ways into better relationships; it’s going to get better, he’s going to change, she’s going to stop nagging, God is going to fix him. OR we can decide to love our way into a new behavior.
Initiation is the key to the love bug! You must put the key in and start up the love bug yourself, quit waiting on the other person to do it for you! Have you not gotten bored with relational slug bug? Pioneer some relational harmony, originate a new loving existence, shift that love bug into overdrive! Hello? Quit focusing on what you are not getting, stop waiting for your emotions to catch up to the gear shift. Put aside your petty issues, get over yourself, and stop waiting for your feelings to engage the clutch. You don’t need your emotions or feelings to empower you, use your brain, it’s probably better to leave those previous raw feelings behind you in the dead sea anyway.
How can you expect your relationships to prosper if you do not make some personal efforts yourself? Are there some relational areas of your life where your love gauge is on empty? Take some time and appraise your love bug, measure the level of your cardiac valve, evaluate your ability to love the other people in your life. Determine the attitude of your oil, is it dirty, does your love bug need an oil change? Do your spark plugs have the ability to ignite some genuine love for your spouse or others? You must first diagnose the condition of your love bug before you can render it love worthy. When you have a clear picture of how your love is set in transmission to others, you can then resolve loves shattered glass.
Let’s say that after some careful examination you found your love bug is in need of a tune up. Guess what? Everybody can increase the rpm’s of their love bugs, not one single love bug motor on this planet is made of perfect love. You take your seat in the drivers seat, you realize it’s not a race, and you set your sights on allowing love to be your great commission. You memorize this bible scripture: Everything you do must be done with love, (1 Corinthians 16:14). Then you place this number on your love bugs outside door panels, 1 John 3:18, which says; "Let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and truth." Then you start your engine and run practice laps, stopping whenever opportunities to love are presented to you. Now you are acting your way into a loving behavior which will transition your love bug into love’s habitual conduct. Continue your practice laps until you find that you are loving others by way of automation, until it becomes so fleshed out that it’s like driving a car.
When you decide to make love your greatest focus in life, you will overflow with joy, and you will find that others are attracted to you by way of love’s magnetism. The people in your life will start to look at you in a new way and wonder where you got this great love from. You can then tell them that "We love because God first loved us." 1 John 4:19
Now here is the revised love bug game that you can play as a couple. Whenever you see a Volkswagen bug you say, "love bug", then you move over and give your partner a kiss. By the way, in initiating this game, you just started your love bug up!
"This is my prayer for you: that your love will grow more and more, and that you will have knowledge and understanding with your love." Philippians 1:9