Jesus famously taught that loving God and loving our neighbor was the foundation of following God. It sounds shockingly simplistic. As we begin to try to love God and others though, we quickly realize that things that are simple are not always easy. To begin with we must face the question: “what is love?”. After all the term gets tossed around in a lot of different contexts. We love cheeseburgers (or at least I do). We love our favorite sports teams. We love warm weather. We love our friends, and we love our spouse, but not in the exact same way. Many people have sworn love to someone in front of family and friends, only to pull away from that person when they “find love” in another place. Love it seems, is complex, and has at times been blamed for things that do not appear loving. To begin unpacking the nature of love, let’s examine the following phrase:
Love has the power to change lives, but that’s not its purpose.
It’s likely that everyone reading this blog post has been changed by love. The love of your parents helped form you as a child. Love of friends has enabled us to persevere at times when we would have normally given up. I have been changed by my wife’s love. My daughter’s love has helped me grow, and even my 18 month-old son has impacted me with his very dependent and generous love and affection.
Even though love clearly has the power to change people, when we use our love to try to change another person, we make love something it was never intended to be. If we are honest with ourselves, we want every person we love to change in some way. At the very least we want them to continue to grow and thrive physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Even though it’s loving to desire that change, our love isn’t dependent on that change. We don’t love people so they will change, we love them for who they are, and if the love is true, we will love them regardless of whether they change or not. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it this way, “God did not make others as I would have made them. God did not give them to me so that I could dominate and control them.” We don’t like to think that we control and dominate others, but when we demand that people respond to our love by conforming to our beliefs and preferences for them that is exactly what we are doing. Bonhoeffer went on to say, “God does not want me to mold others into the image that seems good to me, that is, into my own image.”
Love is powerful and will often desire change in others when the change is good and needed, but love remains even if change never comes. Love is not for the faint of heart, and can at times leave us broken and discouraged. Love invites, but never demands. The early Christian and church planter, Paul said as much in a letter to a church he was mentoring in Corinth. “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-5a)
Love may not insist on it’s own way, but I often do. It’s hard not to when you fear that someone you love is going to do something that will lead to heartbreak and later regret. Lasting change, however, is never coercive, it always flows from the inside out. We each possess the sole key that unlocks change in ourselves. Love can change the world, but only when we allow it to be what is. A commitment to believe the best in others, to suffer for them and with them, to celebrate with them, and to allow change come when and if it will.