Thoughts on Love

I was listening to the radio, and Billy Currington’s song “Must Be Doing Something Right” came on. I’ve heard this song a thousand times, but this time one of the lines caught me: “Don’t know what I did/ to earn a love like this/ but baby I must be doing something right.” Whoa, hold on. Love is earned? You give me what I want—happy feelings, a feeling of importance, physical pleasure, whatever—and I’ll give you love. And if you don’t…No love for you buddy! Sounds like a job: do the work, and you’ll get paid. If you don’t perform well, there’s always someone else willing to take your place.

So is that what love is? Just give-and-take, tit-for-tat? I think most people in our culture would say it isn’t. They would say love is a feeling you have for people you care about; it’s an emotion—the “warm fuzzies” or whatever. But think about this. If someone—sibling, coworker, boyfriend, wife, parents—if they irritate you, how do you feel about them? Do you feel loving? Or do you feel like yelling at them, slapping them, ignoring them, hurting them? I don’t know about you, but I feel more like screaming at them and hurting them. So then, if love is a feeling, then it isn’t there all the time. Sometimes it can go away for good. Why is this?

People are hard-wired to be selfish. We want what we want, when, how, and where we want it. So when things don’t go our way, we don’t usually respond very well. So, taking this into consideration, consider love as a feeling. If love is a feeling, then we love people when they make us feel good, and love stops when they make us feel mad, upset, sad, insecure, or unimportant. So, love is the reward they get for making us feel good. Did you catch that? It’s a reward. It’s payment for doing something for us. It’s earned.

So, while most people would say that love isn’t something you have to earn, they treat people around them like it is.

Obviously I disagree with this definition of love. Then what do I think it is? Well, as a follower of Christ, it’s my job to search for God’s definition of love. Here are some ways God defines love:

“Love is patient, love is kind.

Love does not envy;

is not boastful; is not conceited;

does not act improperly;

is not selfish; is not provoked;

does not keep a record of wrongs;

finds no joy in unrighteousness [righteousness is being right with God. It’s not, as some people think, following all the rules.],

but rejoices in the truth;

bears all things,

believes all things,

hopes all things,

endures all things.

Love never ends.”

1Corinthians 13:4-8a

[This is Jesus talking to his followers]

“As the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you. Remain in My love. If you keep My commands you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commands and remain in His love. I have spoken these things to you so that My joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is My command: love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends.”

John 15:9-13

So, according to these verses… love isn’t actually an emotion at all. It’s giving. It’s serving. It’s uncomplaining, unselfish, patient, and hopeful. It sees the good in people and ignores everything irritating, petty, and mean. Love is caring about other people more than yourself. Love is when someone gives up what they want so that someone else can enjoy it. Love is a choice.

God didn’t have to save us from our pathetic, miserable, twisted existence. He did not have to give us sunsets or friends or hot fudge sundaes or music. He didn’t have to give us talents and abilities and opportunities. He did not have to send his Son to die an unspeakably cruel death so that we could be right with/ have a relationship with Him. For that matter, Jesus did not have to be beaten and mocked and stripped and nailed to a cross. But He chose to. Because He loves us.

And we are called to love others like that. We are called to give everything away, to God and to the people around us. Yet, we find it hard to let someone else go in front of us at the checkout line in Wal-Mart. What a shame. By choosing not to love as God loves, we’re only making our own lives more miserable. Ironic, isn’t it?

“Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live through Him.” 1 John 4:7-9