Love is a Gift
It doesn't matter what kind of relationship you're talking about, if
love is involved, it is a gift. Parents and children, between
siblings, among friends, love is a gift.
Because love is a gift, it can't be bought, sold, earned, or deserved, but it is ours to enjoy, to share and use to enrich each other. True love is of such monumental proportions that it overwhelms our understanding. Our human intellect rebels at the concept of unconditional, self-giving love. Such love makes us nervous, but a brand new baby, just hours old has the capacity to receive it without having a clue about what is going on. Love defies our minds, but it can be experienced.
Because pure love, divine love, eludes our intellectual grasp, we
come up with perverted concepts of love that we can understand:
• love as manipulation
• love as a contact
• love as pleasure
These things we comprehend. Sometimes, we say, "I love you" and what we mean is: I hope you will cooperate with me. Or we might say, "I love you" to convey an implicit contract. I love you for what you do for me. Or we might say, "I love you" meaning nothing more than I want to pleasure myself by pleasuring you.
It is sometimes tough when somebody says, "I love you." How are you going to respond? Saying things like "I know you do" or "that's nice" or "I’m glad you told me" might get us off the hook, but we know that's not what the initiator was looking for. So, whether or not we feel anything for the other person, we cave in to the pressure of the moment and say, "and I love you."
Perhaps we say "I love you" too often, because we use them when we mean things like
• thank you
• that was nice
• you affirm me
• please do that again
When we say "I love you" and mean something else, it confuses the person who hears it. Love reduced to a glorified version of "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" provokes some justifiable doubts.
We ask ourselves: "How will I manage if the other person defaults?" We all have needs and expectations. If our love hinges on their meeting our needs and living up to our expectations, we have to consider what will happen if they disappoint us.
Another nagging question that will arise is: "Am I performing well enough to keep that other person pleasing me?" Some of us feel that it is our ability to give the others what they want that keeps them loving us. Naturally, concerns about matching our efforts to their expectations will nag us.
Perhaps the most fearful doubt of all is: "Are they faking it?" This is brutal, paralyzing, but it does come up every once in a while.
Real love rises above doubts and the fear associated with them. "Perfect love casts out fear because fear involves torment." If your love relationship involves torment you might want to think about whether it is the real thing or not. (See 1 John 4:18-21)
Love is a gift. Some of us work hard for the love of others and
when we do we never accomplish our ends, we will never succeed. We
might succeed in making them grateful, but you can’t make them love you
because love is a gift.
You might lay down your life for someone else and receive nothing more than their thanks.
You might lay down your life for somebody else and receive nothing at
all. But, then, maybe you were somehow fulfilling your side of an
unwanted, unwritten, unsigned, imaginary contract that existed only in
your head and "it wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on." You are
crushed.
Maybe you made sacrifices your parents never recognized.
Maybe you poured yourself into your children and they never said "thank you."
Maybe you denied yourself for your spouse and he or she just consumed
your energy like a black hole traps and consumes light, holding it in
the cold darkness of space where it never escapes. Now you find
yourself trapped by inescapable regret in an unsatisfying
relationship. But love is a gift. You can’t force anyone to love
you. You can only love.
Love is a gift. It is the gift of oneself to another and there is no finer gift. There is no more costly gift. In its perfect expression, it is God dying on a cross for the sins of His own creatures. It was divinity in humanity that died on the cross. The divine nature did not die. Jesus died as a man, but it was God who took on Himself our sin.
Love is a gift. You don't deserve it and you can't earn it, but you need it. You must humble yourself to receive it as a gift. And when we receive freely we can give freely. Love is the basis of all meaningful relationships.
Ron Hughes
© November 2008
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