Articles
The Risk of Love
To love deeply is to take a great risk. There is the risk that the object of your love may at some point reject you. Or even more painfully, the risk that the object of your love will also love you in return, but in the unpredictable and often cruel turns of this world, will be lost to you for reasons you cannot know or understand. That is real pain, because you have so deeply invested your emotions and indeed your very self in that love. Many people have felt this pain, and have decided that they do not ever want to feel it again, so they reject all future opportunities to know true love. Is that the right strategy? The real question that arises from this dilemma of whether to invest ourselves deeply into the love of another is whether it is worth it, given the risk of heartbreak.
And it’s not always an easy question to answer. But if we want to gain an insight into that answer, the first place to look is to the Author and Perfector of love, and that is our God. How does He feel about the risk of investing your love in another? What has He shown us about that? The answer is clear. He is more than willing to take the risk. And He has taken it in ways that are even beyond our own abilities. He has invested His love so deeply in us that He, in the form of the Son, took the incalculable risk of coming and living among us, and experiencing our existence. Jesus put Himself at enormous risk that He could live sinlessly, so as to be our perfect Savior, our perfect Advocate and our perfect Intercessor. He did it because He loves us beyond all measure.
Think about it. God loves us beyond our ability to comprehend. And there is enormous risk in that investment of love. Will we love Him in return, or will we spurn the great sacrifice He made to show us how much He loves us? That must cause pain in God that we can hardly understand. Equally painfully, will we reward that love for much of our lives, only to give up on it near the end? Will something happen to us that causes us to decide that loving God is just not worth it? And it hurts so much that we won’t love God or others deeply again. And in so doing, will we cause Him to suffer the heartbreak of losing us, not because of anything He did?
But in spite of the risks of loving deeply, God still insists on investing Himself in us. He still insists on taking the risks of great loss to show us His true feelings for us. And we ought to learn great lessons from that. Those of us who have loved another deeply only to lose them are faced with the choice of how we will react to that. Will we decide that God must not really care about us that much? Will we decide that loving, and loving in return for the love of others, is just not worth it? Or will we look at God’s own example and decide that, because of His grace, God’s love is the greatest gift ever bestowed on us? And will we then accept the risks of loving Him and others? Will we receive the immeasurable blessings that come from loving God in return for the great love that He has shown us?
Love entails risk. It can result in pain. Sometimes great pain. And it is a pain that God understands only too well. But love has much greater gifts to give us, and God shows us that the risks are well worth the taking. It is not our stuff that makes life good. It is loving relationships that make life worth living. And it is the love of God that will ultimately bring us through the broken hearts of this life, and into a realm where there will be no more tears or sorrows. Only the bliss of being with our loving God forever. Don’t give up on love, especially on the love of God!
In loving memory of Marcus Alexander Wiggins.
Please keep Erica, Greg and Brooklyn in your prayers.
[Bill Couchman, via Cahaba Heights bulletin, 12/21/14]
♦♦♦
Bill Couchman, Melanie’s brother-in-law, wrote this article in memory of his grandson, Marcus Wiggins, who recently died in his sleep. It is so sad to think of people living without genuine, selfless love being shown to them. Not “romantic” love necessarily, but rather the love wherein someone values you, sacrifices for you, abides your imperfections because they see something worthwhile in you. That is what every human being needs to be healthy and whole.
Equally sad is not being able to express selfless love, and perhaps it is the giving of that love that is of more value than the receiving. It is a joy to embrace another with such love. But, as Bill noted, sometimes it comes to a sudden, inexplicable end. But surely it leaves us a richer, better person for having shared it – even if for a brief moment with our infant child. To build walls so that we are spared the grief of possible loss is to suffer a greater injury: a loneliness that will shrivel our soul. Let us love others as God loves us, in spite of the risk, for that is as close to sharing God’s nature as is possible in this life. Such love eases the tragedy of this broken world.
