More Than a Feeling: Love in Action
I had the privilege of grabbing dinner with a fantastic priest recently. The list of things we talked about varied, but one thing he said in passing really stuck out to me.
At one point in our conversation he says, “everyone loves talking about God’s love, but when that Love takes on flesh and makes demands then we become uncomfortable.”
Whoa. Gut check.
I think that speaks a lot to our tendency to shrink from difficulty. It feels good to talk about a love that serves us, but when love asks us to serve then we may begin to grumble. It’s one thing to think about all the ways someone makes you feel, but it’s an entirely different thing to think about their needs.
This really gets to the core of what we think love is today. We often think of love as just a strong, positive feeling. That if I really have strong feelings towards someone then I must deeply love them. Our culture has made emotions the king of our decisions. If we aren’t sure whether to do something or not, we are often advised to think about what makes us “feel the best.”
The thing is, though, it’s easy to reduce love to feelings because it’s non-confrontational. If things feel amazing then there is nothing challenging us and we can remain as we are. We don’t have to change for our beloved, our beloved has to change for us. It makes us concerned about how much the person is measuring up to my liking, not about what I can give to them. It’s all about what is happening to me – how I feel.
But the truth is that love is an action. It’s a verb. It’s not a state of being but an act of the will. Love is wanting what is best for someone and doing something about it. It presupposes that we not only care for our beloved but that we act on their behalf. It is not concerned with what they give me, but what I can give them.
Love makes demands. If we truly want what is best for someone and we truly will do something about that, then that means sometimes we have to do things that make us uncomfortable. Things that stretch us and push us past our comfort zone.
Just to be clear, that does not mean that love means to conform exactly to whatever another person wants of us. It does not mean being pressured into doing things we know are wrong or are not true to ourselves. That is not love.
Love, rather, is a mutual self-giving. It means that both parties are concerned about the other’s well-being. That both are not making demands at each other, trying to build up their own egos, but that both are willing to sacrifice their own comforts for the sake of the other. In this way, love makes demands. In the way that love is calling them out of themselves and into the realm of another person.
But you know what? It’s exactly those demands that make love so great.
If love didn’t cost us something it wouldn’t be great. Love is this beautiful thing that poets write endless sonnets over and philosophers seek after for years. It’s something that every human heart desires and that is held up in almost any culture as one of the highest goods. But if it didn’t make demands it would be easy, and no one writes sonnets about something that’s easy.
The fact that to love means a sacrifice on our end means that it is something great. It means it is something that is not just given and placed in our laps, but something we have to strive for. It means that love is a great adventure and that it is calling our name, calling us to greater heights. None of that would be possible if love didn’t make demands.
So don’t settle for the cheap imitations of love the culture offers. Don’t limit love to just a fleeting feeling. Lean into love and all of its demands. And ultimately, lean into the Love that has taken on flesh, for you will never regret the demands that He makes.
