Is love a choice or decision you make?

I found this article on boundless.org and I must say it got me thinking..

Our culture has made "falling in love" the most important aspect of a relationship. If those fuzzy feelings aren't strong enough or if they fade away, you better move on to someone else. But what about the idea that we choose to love people even when we don't feel like it?

You've probably heard that marriage is a covenant and that's true. But it's probably more accurate to broaden this to say that love is a covenant, the definition of which is an agreement or contract between two parties.

Do you want to know why arranged marriages don't work in our culture today? Just think about our approach to finding a mate. We shop around asking the question, "Who will make me the happiest?" Once we've made our decision, we decide to marry that person. Then, after a while, we begin to have unhappy times and slowly but surely we begin to wonder if we've made the wrong choice. Maybe I should've waited, we think. Maybe this other person over here was the right person because they would've made me happier. Then, of course, we join that 50 percent of people who asked the same question about happiness.

In fact, what I find wholly fascinating and repulsively ironic about our attitude on love is that, on the one hand, we would rather die than not be able to choose our spouse and, on the other hand, we would rather divorce that same spouse than choose to love them. We want the option to choose without the responsibility to choose.

Micah encourages people to quit looking for what will make them happiest and instead focus on making others happy. In fact, according to the greatest commandments, our goal should be to love those around us -- quite crucial when it comes to having healthy relationships.

Micah points out one of the best examples of the choice to love in the story of God and Israel as presented in the book of Hosea. The prophet Hosea is asked to marry a prostitute who continues to run off and sleep with other men. It's a picture of God's relationship with Israel -- how He continues to love and pursue her even when she turns away:

But, why did Yahweh continue the chase? Because He had "fallen in love"? Not really. It was because He made a covenant to love Israel and refused to abandon it despite her failures.

In the same way, Hosea maintained his pursuit of Gomer because, for him, love was a covenant, not an emotion; a choice, not a feeling.

It's no wonder that the Bible is fairly silent about romance, or more accurately, it's no wonder that the Bible doesn't equate romance and love. Romance is fleeting though it feels wonderful. Love is lasting despite how it feels.

I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments in this article, although I know that deciding to love someone is much easier said than done. What do you think? Is love a choice?