What is Love? It's not what you may think!

What is love? Talk about an over-used word in our society. We can love a car. We can love a child. We can love a cookie. We can love a friend. We declare, “Oh, I love that dishwasher.” But also declare to another person, “I love you.”

This one little word has so many uses that its meaning has become diluted, I believe. While expressing such a precious feeling on one hand – the love of another human being, it also is used to express desire for something really quite inconsequential, such as a cookie or a car or a dishwasher. Surely, the love we feel for a cookie and the love we feel for our child are something quite different.

I’d say that love of dishwasher, cookie or car expresses something that brings us pleasure or delight. Such love is about our desire to possess and enjoy such an item. This desire might be intense and bring great pleasure, but it is definitely a one way process because the cookie or dishwasher or car do not hold any love for me or you.

Love of another person is something altogether different. This love is a relationship and involves an attachment with each other and a commitment one to the other. The word “compassion” might take us closer to what this kind of love is all about. When asked to define “compassion,” we name it as love and deep caring. The word at its root actually means “with suffering.” Therefore, to have compassion is to be willing to suffer with another person.

This is really what loving another human being is about. Our connection with them is so deep that we are willing to share not just the joys, but also the sorrows. We are willing to share not just the wonders of their life but also the times of suffering. That is what loving another human being really means.

Of course, when a baby or child comes into our lives, it is the adults that are drawn to and committed to compassionate love for the little one. It is our willingness as the caring adult to comfort, protect, support and encourage the child through the triumphs and tragedies of life that is what love is all about.

There is such a big deal made about romantic love and falling in love within our culture. The message comes across that that is what love is. Yes, when we are attracted to another person, the hormones react and we have this huge, wonderful full body reaction – a romantic high, that is both overwhelming and exciting. Yet, romantic love and the experience of falling in love is not what builds a relationship. When the romantic and ecstatic feelings subside, as they will, what is left as the foundation of the relationship?

A deep and lasting relationship is built not on romantic feelings or on that intense desire to possess something (or someone). The love we need in our relationships, the love that provides for our children and our families, the love to which we are called us as followers of Jesus is compassionate love, a love that in which we are committed to walking with someone through the joys and sorrows, the delights and the suffering.

However, I must say that this doesn’t mean that we allow someone to abuse us, bully us, or take advantage of us. That is not love. Love can not be demanded of us by someone who harms us in any way.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrong doing, but rejoices in truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never comes to an end.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

That’s a pretty high standard for love. To live such love requires 3 things:

a. that we are in mutual relationships. This is not about one person doing all the demanding and enduring while the other person offers all the love.

b. that we are supported in a larger community of love, such as our church family. We can’t do this alone. There are days when we will fail at offering compassionate love. We need to be surrounded by those who love us and encourage us, no matter what.

c. that we surround our children and youth with unconditional love so that they grow up knowing what such love is like. We can not expect our children and youth to offer us this love – we must offer it first to them, with no strings attached.

Love – go ahead and love your cookie or your car and fall in love. But remember that such love is not a substitute for the deeper love that we share with other human beings, love that involves sharing both joys and sorrows with each other.

We live in a materialistic culture. We are being sold the message that what we own can bring fulfillment to our lives. That is wrong. What we need is to live the mutual love and compassion, spoken of by the apostle Paul and shown to us by Jesus. It is in loving each other as God loves us that we find what our souls need, and what our children’s souls need.