Love and Respect
Respect is an important part of all relationships, but it is understood and expressed in different ways. Sometimes respect is closely connected to admiration. If you see a person who is much better at what you do than you are, you feel a natural respect for that person. It may be coupled with some envy, but you respect the proficiency displayed.
We usually learn respect for authority fairly early in our social interactions as we encounter people who have a position of authority which requires respect because of their role in society. I can look back on my own school career and think of some teachers that I didn’t particularly admire. I didn’t want to be like them for sure, but I respected them because they were teachers.
Then there is a basic respect we have in consideration for a person’s humanity. We shouldn’t treat anyone with contempt, – even persons for whom we feel no admiration, who are not as “good” as we are in either ability or character or who have any vested authority. As persons made in the image of God, we all merit positive regard from each other.
Fundamentally, the idea of respect probably is best wrapped up in the word “honour.” This concept focusses on the underlying attitude towards the other. You can honour someone you don’t particularly admire. I think of my mother who spent the last few years of her life suffering with Alzheimer’s disease. It was wonderful to see the staff in the facility where she was honouring her as they took care of her, though, at that point in her life, mom had little left worthy of admiration.
How do we communicate honour? We express it not only in what we do, but in how we do it. It comes through in both words and actions. Most of us have experienced situations in which someone has said the right words, but in such a mocking, sarcastic way that it was clear that there was no respect present at all. Contempt sometimes drips from the lips of those who are using the right words – words which would normally indicate respect.
What matters when we talk about honouring others is the attitude of our heart. Respect springing from deep within us, comes across in the tone of our words as well as the words themselves. It comes across in our actions, too. We clearly sense how others feel about us, though we may be hard pressed to explain precisely how we know. They also know how we feel about them, even when we try to disguise it.
Sometimes, we experience tension between love and respect. Love, at its best, is a giving of oneself to another. Part of that giving will involve honour. So we can safely say that there is some crossover between love and respect, though they are not the same.
I think of a woman who told me she had a deep inner drive to be respected. Consequently, she demanded respect from her family and got it. Yet, after a few years, she realized that while those around her respected her, there was not too much love. Her demanding respect had come at a price. She had required so much from others that they resisted voluntarily laying down their life for her.
Conversely, if the great drive in our life is to be loved, it is entirely possible that our behaviour will lead others to not respect us. They will see us as weak, take us for granted and cease to honour us. When we talk about love and respect we need to recognize that we play a role in eliciting these from others. Often what we get from others is what we expect from them at some deep unspoken level.
In places of employment, some bosses demand respect. They are strict with their employees and demanding in terms of performance. Such a person’s employees may honour him or her as a good employer, but there won’t be much love because they feel what they have given in response to demands leaves no room to go farther. Other bosses are so desirous of the affection of their staff that they are always trying to find ways of pleasing them. In a worst case scenario, they might even sacrifice the best interests of the business to nurture those relationships. Workers may have affection for this kind of boss, but little in terms of respect.
For those who accept biblical authority, they identify clear imperative statements in Ephesians 5, and 1 Peter 3, one clearly indicating that wives should respect their husbands the other clearly indicating that husbands are to honour their wives. You may struggle with some of the individual’s personal characteristics. Your spouse may not be the most admirable person in the world. You may not want to be like this other person, but you respect him or her because this is the person with whom you share your life and respect for your partner in the most intimate of all relationships.
Love seems to come relatively easily between parents and their young children, but mutual respect is another matter. Often in adolescence and beyond, a great divide comes between the generations. While love exists, parents and their increasingly mature children find it hard to respect each other. Mutual respect is crucial in building and maintaining good long-term relationships – and that is what we’re looking for in families.
It is very important that the respect that you give and receive in your intimate relationships be the real thing. There needs to be a genuine sense of honouring and cherishing the other person. You respect them because they have the same human dignity that you have. You love them because of the place they have in your life. As we’ve seen, love and respect certainly overlap but they are not the same and you never want to sacrifice one for the other.
We all know people whose behaviour leads us to feel something bordering on contempt (I’m being kind here) and whose features, physical, emotional, social, spiritual or all of the above do nothing to elicit a response love in us. The challenge before us is whether we will adopt the lower standards which surround us or rise above them.
Much of society would hold you blameless for not loving and respecting the losers, the inept, the ugly, the miserable, the unkind, the domineering and others of their kind. However, you know that a higher calling exists for those who hear it. It is the call to love and respect others, not because of who they are or what they are like, but rather because of who you are and what you are like.
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