First comes love.

What is love? I know it is a serious question, but the first thing that comes to my mind with that question is the 90’s rock song by Haddaway and the bad Saturday Night Live skits based upon it. I can’t get the image out of my head of Jim Carrey, Chris Kattan, and Will Ferrell dancing along ineptly to a driving drum machine, synthesizer chords, and the lyrics, “What is love? Baby, don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me, no more.”

It could be that this image is there because I permanently scarred myself by staying up late, munching cold pizza with my friends in college. Or, it could be there because it is the image that most resonates with me. When I think of love, the question really is about what love truly is. And, when I am honest, the response that comes most naturally has something to do with not wanting to be hurt in my inept attempts to love and be loved. Basically, my response to the question is, “I don’t know what love is, but what I do know is I don’t want to get hurt.”

Why is this? Why is it so difficult to define love and yet so easy to express the desire not to be hurt by it, whatever it is? Maybe it is difficult to define love because it has been defined so many different ways: Love is chemistry. Love is romance. Love is a choice. Love is an attitude. Love is an emotion. Love is action, not emotion. Love is sex. Love is tolerance. Love is being willing to be intolerant. Love is. . .confusing. Whatever love is, it is prickly because more than one of us has gotten burned in our attempts to love and be loved. Some of us have gone down in flames and some of us are still smoldering piles of rubble because of love.

Whatever love is, it is fairly apparent that we want it. We might even say we were made for it. I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t have the desire to love and be loved. It is this desire that drives us forward, seeking, pursuing, chasing after that elusive thing we call love. Yet, our pursuit is dogged by the shadow of the possibility that we will be hurt.

Deep down we know this is not the way it is supposed to be. We know that something we desire so much should not hurt so badly, and yet it often does. Why is this? Maybe it is because we are pursuing the wrong thing. I don’t mean that we are wrong to pursue love. I mean that maybe what we are calling love isn’t really love. Just look at the struggle we have in defining love. Our definitions are all over the map. Yet, the majority of our definitions are united by a common theme: us. What I mean is this. The way we define love often has something to do with us, with what we get, with how we feel, with what it makes us. Our definitions of love are, simply put, self-seeking. Anytime we seek what is about us, our engagement with others becomes utilitarian, manipulative, coercive. Basically, people cease to be persons and become objects to be used to satisfy our own needs and desires. Is it any wonder that this means of engaging with others can lead to anything but hurt, even in the best of cases?

If love is not going to hurt then it can’t be about us, about meeting our needs, wants, and desires. If love isn’t about us, what is it about? Let’s go back to one of the fundamentals about love. Love is something that happens within the context of relationships. Apart from the presence of other people, love cannot exist. You and I together gives rise to the possibility of love. That said, if you and I are together and love is not about me, then love becomes about you. In the same way, if love is not about you, then for you, love becomes about me. In other words, love is about the other, about meeting the needs, wants, and desires of the other. It is precisely this definition of love that we find in 1 Corinthians 13, and it is this means of defining love that leads away from hurt to fulfillment.

If love is not about me when I am with you, then I am not concerned about manipulating, coercing, or using you. I only want to bless you, to help you, to be for you in whatever way truly lifts you up. I don’t have to be concerned about me because in a love relationship you are concerned about me. You want to bless, help, and lift me up. Therefore, loving engagement between us is marked not by a using up of the other but a building up of the other. You know, that doesn’t hurt.

A fellow traveler,

Blake

What’s my next step?

We encourage you to consider engaging in the following as a way of handing off faith in your family.

Practice love as a family: Love as the selfless seeking of the good of the other is not something that comes naturally. From our earliest interactions, we seem to be hard-wired to seek our own good, even if it means seeking our own good at the expense of others. Love is something that takes practice, something that must be learned. This week, consider building a foundation for practicing love by memorizing 1 Corinthians 13.4-8a as a family. You might say these verses before or after a meal together, or as you put children to bed at night. Once these verses are memorized, consider working them into your family’s prayers and discussions. For instance, might ask about how you each showed patience or kindness that day, or how you struggled with having your own way over another. Encourage one another to keep practicing love and share the meaningful insights and experiences that come along the way.

We encourage you to consider engaging in the following as a way of deepening your own faith.

Evaluate your love quotient: Love is the selfless seeking of the good of the other, but this way of relating is not something that naturally marks our relationships. Often, our relating to others is self-seeking. This week, consider memorizing 1 Corinthians 13.4-8a. Once you have memorized these verses, begin to evaluate your relationships in light of what you have memorized. Allow God to speak to you about the nature of your relationships and how, if at all, he would have you to change them in light of love.