I am really struggling today with what love looks like. And sadly I am coming to the conclusion that my definition of love looks an awful lot like my definition of God, it looks a lot like me or perhaps it is the one characteristic of God that for me carries the most power, the desire to reflect what I value most about who I think God is. Justice. Years ago I found a bible verse that affirmed my nature and gave my definition of love credibility. Micah 6:8b “ …to do justice, love kindness and to walk humbly with God.”
Because the emotions/actions called for in this verse are ones I am able to achieve, this became my definition of loving God. I certainly was not going to look up 1Corinthians 13, Paul’s chapter on love and use that as my model for defining love. That definition, I decided was not how I was to love, it is how God loves us. It is word for word the list of God’s true character, His very nature. Not ours.
To use this as the model by which I am to love all others leaves me, well, unable to love anyone. Because I cannot by nature, love this way. My nature is one of selfishness. I love others for the sole purpose of what I may get from the relationship. This is even why I try to love God. For the same reasons I try to love anyone, in the hope that they will love me in return; that my needs will be met, that I will not be alone, afraid, or unhappy; that I would be good, seen as good, obedient and more powerful. Even if I could give up what seems to be a desire to control others by loving selflessly I would still hope that God would love and provide for me (thereby meeting all my needs).
Maybe I am not alone here. Maybe we all do this.
So what then is the answer? If I continue to love others with my definition of love even though they are only able to receive their own definition of love, they will reject my love and neither of us get what we are hoping for. I don’t get loved and others don’t feel loved.
When my oldest daughter was four years old she suddenly exclaimed from the back seat, “Are you going to be a good Mom or a bad Mom today?!”
“Are you going to get me a Slurpee or not?!”
Suddenly my entire weight of glory as a Mother hung in the balance. If we were heading home for dinner getting her a Slurpee at that time would be the defined by most people as a “bad Mom”. So the truth was by whose definition did I want to be measured by?
This is how I think we approach loving each too. We decide when, where and by whose definition we will love.
So what do I cling to here for hope…That God’s character, his very nature is love and so even though we chose our definitions when and how and where we will love, he always chooses to measure us by his love.
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