So, almost 3 years later, I will share my thoughts. And I have to say the opening is very cheesy. Who looks up the word "love" on dictionary.com? Kinda dorky.... :) I also have to preface this with saying this was followed by a period of lots of pain and confusion and questioning.....which you may pick up on when you read this :)
What is love?
I looked up love on dictionary.com and didn’t like any of
the definitions I found—firstly, because I don’t think it can be expressed in
words, and secondly, because almost every definition dealt with romantic love
and love is so much more than that.
Love is something I’ve been grappling with a lot in the past
couple weeks. Is it an emotion? Is it a choice? Is it both?
Or can it not even be described as either of those? Is love something that takes time to develop
or can we achieve love in an instant? Is
it something purely spiritual and can only be accomplished through intimately
seeking God, who is love? Do
non-Christians have a different perception of love or is love universal among
all humans? And how in the world are we
supposed to look on people with love if they have murdered a family member, or
robbed our home, or even just trampled over our hearts? How do we overcome hatred, anger,
disappointment, grief, and heartache with love, forgiveness, peace, and
reconciliation? Can our deepest wounds
really be healed through love? When the
pain comes rushing back to us, can we just flip on this switch of “love” and
will it all go away? Can we ever really
completely overcome our sinful nature and love purely, without a trace of
condemnation?
I have so many questions.
I don’t claim to fully know any of the answers to these
questions, but I wanted to write my insights on love, deriving from Shane
Claiborne’s talk the other night, experiences, reading, listening, and meditation
on the subject. I write this in hopes of
further processing love myself, and in hopes of hearing some of your thoughts
and insights as well.
I feel so naïve and unqualified to even attempt to quantify
and understand love. I bet a lot of you
reading this have a much better understanding of it than I do. I know that no human can ever fully grasp
love to its full capacity, but can we even come close to that? God has been bombarding my heart and mind
with this concept of what it means and what it looks like to love. I have always considered myself a loving
person, accepting of everyone, welcoming everyone with open arms. But I’m just starting to see how ignorant
I’ve been. It’s so easy to be a loving
person when you’re lavished with love from family and friends, have grown up in
a home where racism is hated, equality is praised, and biblical values are
taught; when your parents are still
together, when you have hope for a great future and you know that there are so
many people supporting you.
But what about when you don’t have love spoken to you, shown
to you, handed to you, lavished upon you?
When it’s difficult to look on
anyone or anything of this world with love in your heart? The people that can overcome pain, suffering,
hurt, anger, and hatred deeper than I could ever comprehend and yet still find
it in their hearts to love, they are
loving people.
I honestly don’t even know if I could consider a person truly
“loving” if they have everything handed to them, they have never been deeply
hurt by anyone, they have never taken the time to serve others completely unselfishly,
and they never have had to fight feelings of hatred and anger and chosen to
look on someone with love, through Christ’s eyes—eyes of grace. Maybe that’s a bit radical. Maybe you’re even offended by that
statement. But I think suffering,
self-sacrifice, and service are at the root of love. I think when we humble ourselves enough to
realize that all of humanity is in need of love and grace because we are all
sinful, fallen people, we can begin to truly love. This kind of radical thinking violates our
human nature. This is completely counter-cultural. And this seems impossible, especially when
you really think about it. I mean, this
means that we’d have to look on thieves, on murderers, and even on terrorists
with love. How in the WORLD are we
supposed to do that, and why do we need to do that? Complicated questions. Really, really tough questions. I could just say “because the Bible says so”
and be done with it, but I want to dive into this. I think in order to understand why we are
called to this radical love we must understand the source of this love, which I
believe comes from God. He in himself is
love. He created this world and then
humbled himself and came down to this earth to show humanity this great,
awe-inspiring love. Then He sacrificed
himself to pay the price for the sins of humanity when we didn’t deserve it one
bit—the greatest act of love and the greatest extension of grace. OK, so, that was Christ. That was GOD.
We are not God so why do we have to extend love and grace to everyone
despite what they’ve done to us or family members or friends? Why and how must we show love when they haven’t
and maybe won’t ever reciprocate the love?
How is that JUST, how is that FAIR in the least? Well, it’s not just or fair. But we’re not here to judge this world or
judge the people of this world, that’s God’s job. And who are we to judge?
Romans 2:1 says,
“You may think you can condemn such people, but you are just
as bad, and you have no excuse! When you
say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for
you who judge others do these very same things.”
While we’re here on this crappy, broken, messy earth, we are
called, we are commanded to
love. And while this may seem like a
hard or impossible commandment to follow, wouldn’t life be so much better if
more people chose to love instead of fight and hate and hold grudges against
people? It doesn’t do any good. It doesn’t serve any purpose. And it can drown us if we’re not careful.
Romans 12:9-10 says “Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and
take delight in honoring each other.”
Notice it says hate what is wrong. Not the person who did the wrong.
Luke 6 shakes me up.
Once in my anger my mom texted me saying “read Luke 6:35-49.” I looked it up, thinking it might be verses
of comfort, but it started “Love your enemies!
Do good to them. Lend to them
without expecting to be repaid.” My
heart shouted “What the hell?! Yeah right mom!
Good one.” But I keep coming back
to that passage, hit with a hard blow every time. God is speaking those words to me. To us.
And because of our own pride and self-righteousness we deny this or
ignore it, when it has the power to FREE us.
So this whole radical love thing—easier said than done
right? Is it a mindset thing? Is it a heart thing? Is it both?
And how can we get our mind to connect with our heart? How can we take this knowledge and let it
seep into our daily lives? The only
answer I have for that is prayer—deep, heartfelt, earnest prayer for love. We’re not capable of loving on our own. We’re not capable of living in this messy,
confused, fallen world with our own strength.
We need God’s love and we need to take that love and pour it on to
everyone.
I think I’ll save further comments and questioning to
another post, but in the meantime I’d love to hear thoughts on any of what I
said. Maybe for some of you this seems
really basic, and maybe for some it seems foreign, and maybe for some it seems
ridiculous. But this is my first attempt
at making sense of what I understand about love and this world.
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