Westheights Church Library review of the book “God Speaks Your Love Language” by Gary Chapman. Reviewed by Pamela Kennedy.
You did an incredible job! I bought you this gift. I’m so looking forward to helping out at the homeless shelter today. These are all expressions of different love languages. Gary Chapman is well known for his “Love Language” series. He has written many books that include love languages for children, teenagers, singles, and mates.
In his book, God Speaks Your Love Language, he proposes that how we express our love for God is shaped by our preferred love language and that God in return speaks to us in our preferred love language.
Chapman clearly explains how to discover your primary love language. Before identifying your primary love language, you may have felt that you had to excel in all of the five areas – words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch. However, we are uniquely programmed to succeed in our primary love language. Hence, we are able to find a deeper satisfaction in using our primary love language in our relationship with the Lord. Of course, being the God of the universe, He can respond to us in our primary love language.
One person may feel that they want more undistracted quality time with the Lord to pray, meditate or read scripture. Yet another may be incredibly close to the Lord when they are cleaning or cooking for someone, because they feel the most joy when they are serving in His name.
Chapman also explores how to speak new dialects of love. “If we only do what comes naturally and express love to God in our usual manner, it is possible that even a relationship with God will become routine” (p.132). “Each of the five love languages has many dialects, but many of us have limited ourselves to the few that come naturally to us” (p133). Thus, Chapman gives creative examples of dialects within each love language to help us broaden our love relationship with God.
Why bother to learn about your primary love language? It will help you to understand yourself better, as well as understand and help others more effectively. Thus, if you have a desire to grow closer to the Lord, this book can help you find and enhance your preferred love language so that you can become more deeply connected with God as well as others