Love Never Stops Loving
I’ve been reflecting quite a bit these days on the beautiful and profound power of love.
When we think we are right, but we communicate our conviction without love, then we are wrong. Period. I may know all the right answers, have the best course of action, the brightest and best ideas, the perfect conviction in a matter (because it is “crystal clear”), and if I hold any of those things even slightly above the work of love, then I am nothing. I gain nothing. My pursuits for perfection are nothing when I let a lack of love get in the way. Whether it’s a lot or a little lack, without love, I am nothing.
Think about it: even if what you’re saying is the truth, even if you are right, it’s worth nothing if what you’re saying is shared in a way that is antithetical to the truth you’re sharing. If you’re saying “Love wins!” but you say it with your middle finger to world, bashing “the other side” in the process, then even if what you’re saying is on point, you’re completely missing the mark.
I can think of so many Bible passages that talk about the necessity for love. The Love Chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, is the quintessential excerpt from Scripture that teaches us about love, how to love, what love is, and why love is so gosh darn important. To spare you from providing it more than once as a point of reference on my blog lol, I’ll just pull up verse 8 from the Passion translation of that chapter: “Love never stops loving.”
Love is not just something we do on occasion. It becomes what we embody, how we live, how we breathe, how we see the world. When I look at the world, myself, and others through the lens and experience of love, I am so freaking free. I begin to truly understand what I’m here for. Why this life matters. What the entire point of existence is for. It’s all for love.
Just today I was chatting with a dear friend about the importance of living in and being motivated by love. We began chatting first about how people tend to say they’re loving others. We tend to “speak the truth in love,” first and foremost. We say that it’s the most loving thing to tell someone else when they’re straying and not heeding good advice. We think that oftentimes “something must be said” when maybe in reality, we need to shut up and allow for that person to sift through their own situation. (This is all so complex…articulating the concept of love and how it relates to truth is quite the challenge! Bear with me. :) ).
We tend to think that we can love people best by creating rules for them to follow. That’s how order is maintained anyways, right? And order is of utmost importance. We can’t allow for variation, differences, nuances, tensions, uncertainty, or anything that is not “crystal clear.” When we want to love - even with the best intentions - and therefore conclude that we need to make absolute truths in certain situations, that is how we can pave the way for love but miss the mark if the hills we’re dying on aren’t actually about love at their core. When we think we know what is best, we start making rules for how we should live. And rather than seeing each person as an individual with their own story, we start to operate out of “the rules” we create for certain situations and instruct our loved ones on how to live based off of those rules.
We see this all over any organization these days, even the church. Religiosity is the essence of rule making, rule following, and punishment for when rules (inevitably) are broken. It is really hard to find love in the process and product of rule making. It certainly is not impossible; even in this discourse I’m having with myself, I recognize the importance of sound rules, systems, and regulations for life. If we have no rules, then chaos will break out. That is just the nature of (the worst of) humanity. However, there has to be the undercurrent of love in the midst of those structures. Without it, rule making is just a route procedure that so often sucks the life out of a situation or scenario. It can so easily forget to account for the individual. It’s all about how everyone needs to act in accordance with what the rule has established. In this case, there is only a “one size fits all” scenario to love. And is that really even love?
I don’t yet seem to have my finger on the pulse for what truly is the essence of love. And how it relates to truth. I do think creating structures around life, what is genuinely good life, and what ushers in the most freedom for us, is a very good thing. Freedom is found in pleasant places, where we actually have some good boundaries. When our hearts become ever more concerned with the pursuit of love, always over the pursuit and posture of just “following the rules,” we take the experience of life from something bland, dead, and external, to something genuinely alive.
If this life is really about the matter of the heart, that we’re made to be truly alive, then rules seem to be so foreign to that concept. If I’m just following the rules, because I’m supposed to, and I’m not questioning why they exist, or if they’re even worth breaking or holding onto, or I’ve actually become convinced of their necessity, then I’m not really alive yet. I think true life, being truly alive, is recognizing when a rule external to myself is life-giving, or life-hindering. If the object of the rule is to detach us from good freedom and true joy and life, then the rule is not serving us. However, if the heart of anything we subscribe to and follow is about how to live alive, to live freely, to enjoy life, to find joy, to pursue all that is good, true, and beautiful, then we’ve hit the mark.
Love never stops loving. Don’t give up.
