I question
what my ideas of love are daily. You see, from the time I was a little girl, I have
had the narrative of what love looks like handed to me in its neat little
doctrinally sound package: Love is
patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not
proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not
easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in
evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
Again, I
question what love is daily.
Is love all
these things that this well-known scripture claims it is? Or furthermore, can
love betray all these things and still be love? Does love fall on its face
again and again, betraying all the things it claims to be and still be every
bit as authentic as it is in its perfection?
Is love only
love when it is all these things, or when
it does all these things? If I am
unkind or easily angered by someone, is it true that I must not love that
person in that moment? Is it true that love must have many kinds of bi-polar attributes
to it? In other words, is love either switched on or switched off at any
given moment, depending on the action of the individual who claims to love
another (or not love another, respectively)? But my question goes far beyond
this, and I wonder if I may even be thought foolish to consider my questions. Can
love be authentic even when it plunges into the negative? Can love be
authentic even in the betrayal of love itself?
I don’t even
know what I’m saying. All I know is that my whole outlook concerning the nature
of love is being deeply challenged. It would appear that love is not all the
things that it claims to be, but maybe even exactly the opposite.
Love, it
would seem, never perseveres and always fails.
But it doesn’t
make me seek to find it any less.
5 comments:
I believe, Love is not a feeling,it is an act of your will.To love someone does not mean you have to like their actions,only that you respond in a loving way.
The picture of Love as outlined in the Corinthians passage is a picture of perfect love. It is our ideal, but it is not a perfection that we are able to obtain. Christ serves as the perfect example and someday we will be made complete in this love. Meanwhile, we use the outline as our earthly guide. Yes Love down here does not always look perfect. We know the Love of Christ in that he loved us even in our imperfection. Not as easy for us to model down here.
Love is none of those things and it is all of those things depending on the moment. I am struggling with my love. At the moment, it just hurts. I am tired of this pain and wish it would just stop, but it continues. I too am wondering if love simply stops because we are tired of trying or just tired of being in love. At a certain point in a marriage, are you supposed to be just friends? Or when that point arrives, are you supposed to just walk away? Sorry, I've been no help to you. Except to say that this is a question that every single person has asked and there are no clear answers. Peace.
I agree that it's worthwhile to think of our attraction to love, our need for it, as being larger than the aspects of love found in the Corinthians passage. This list of love's qualities is not exclusive and may not exclude the opposite (like you propose).
Yesterday I was talking with Alex about love always failing, how every day people fail at love and how love itself fails to deliver. That made me pretty hopeless until I realized I was focusing too much on the "fail" part of the statement "love always fails". I felt better when I focused on this idea of love persevering despite its own failure.
I love your insights, Michaelia!
Hi, Michaela
I followed you over here from the BHWG website. You have a very nice looking blog, and I really appreciate your honest and open style. Thinking is, alas, something many of us don't make time for.
Isn't it funny how love, defined here, is yet so hard to define in ourselves. This is God's love. He never gives up. We sometimes do, because it just hurts too much to carry on. Or maybe because the emotion is gone due to factors we honestly have no control over -- glands, for example -- and these are influenced by others' treatment of us, our treatment of them, physical health, economic circumstances . . . so many things.
Love is a physical/emotional sensation, but it is also a condition of the heart/spirit and yes, even an act of the will. Love is everything, and God's love is all those things listed in 1 Cor 13 -- and always will be.
As we draw near to Him, He conforms us into the image of His Son. We live by His life, not our own, and His love begins to grow in us. This is, imo, the kingdom of God -- His influence and rulership in our lives.
Because we live in the world, in bodies subject to corruption, often going through horrible things, we do not always FEEL loving. Yet as we live by His life, we will nevertheless BECOME loving. It's a process. We confuse ourselves by always looking for the feelings, which may be fugitive. We can love right through those missing feelings and out the other side -- and there they are, waiting for us.
Love can be a little like faith. Sometimes you just have to trust that it's there -- you can't always sense it.
Blessings, Cindy
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