I've been wrestling a lot lately with the idea of love. It's not the first season that I've wrestled with it, and it probably won't be the last; it's such a hard idea in a world like ours.
Most of the things that we call "love" aren't really. They're usually something much less.
A lot of times, what we call "love" is actually appreciation - we love what someone else does for us, so we say that we love them, but the truth is...we don't. Not really. We just love what they do for us. We love the functions and the tasks they perform. We love the gifts that they share with us.
The trouble is that when they stop performing, stop sharing, stop giving..."love" falls apart real fast.
Sometimes, we "love" the idea of someone or something more than we love it. This is true especially for anyone who doesn't like to be alone or doesn't know how to be alone. They cling to someone or something else and call it love, but it's not really love - it's a filler. It fills the empty space in their lives so that they don't feel it so profoundly, and that creates good feelings that we call love.
The trouble is that when we realize they're just filling a space without any valuable connection..."love" falls apart here, too.
There are times when we love what someone or something else brings out in us. Often, this boils down to loving them because they need us, because they make us feel strong or smart or powerful in what we are able to offer them. We're at our best when we're with them because they're at their worst, so we love them...
...but looking down on someone isn't love. And using someone else to look up on ourselves isn't love, either.
When we get down to it, very few of us know how to truly love or to be loved. Very few of us know what real love is.
But John tells us this is what real love is: that God loves us. That's real love. (1 John 4:10)
It's real love because God isn't captivated by our performance or our gifts or our offerings. It's real love because God doesn't need us to fill an empty space for Him; He's complete just as He is. It's real love because God's not using us to puff Himself up or to feel good about who He is.
Real love pours through until it pours out. It is offered freely, with no strings or definitions or expectations attached. That's why God is so good at it and we are so not. We're so busy trying to soak up love that we tend to hold onto at least a little bit of it instead of letting it pour through us and to those who really need it.
The only way to truly love someone else, or ourselves, is to start with knowing that we are truly loved. We have to be full before we can let love pour through us, and that's really hard. And that's what John is saying - real love isn't our love. Not even our most pure love, the love we are supposed to have for God.
Real love is God's love.
The rest only makes us hungrier for it.
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