YOU LOVE WHAT YOU WILL TO LOVE

“But God demonstrates His own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

“(Nothing) shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:39).

Questions about love have rolled around in my head for some days now. Questions like, “Do I have to love someone in order to be their friend?” or “Do I have to feel something before I love someone?” Questions about love have great implications in the dating world. Questions like, “Do I date someone because I love them, or do I date them to love them?” These questions all boil down to this: “Do I love someone because there is something in them that has caused me to love them or is love its own warrant; does love self-perpetuate simply by my willingness to love?” “What?” you ask sneeringly, “That sounds like unintelligible double talk.” Well is it? Let us embark on a brief to probe a bit into the love of God. So I present the case: “Is love a willful act of response, or is love simply an act of the will?”

The answer lies in the love of God.

To understand the love of God is to fully understand love. Where did the love of God come from? The Bible never hints that God’s love was created in some dank laboratory in the faraway recesses of heaven. It does not teach that love is a divine attribute that flows out of God’s intrinsic nature. It doesn’t teach that God’s love was His natural response toward the loveliness of the one being loved. God’s love is simply His will to love. Simply put, “God is love.” We can say no more.

When we try to find the source of God’s love we become like the man who tried to trace a sun’s beam back to its source. In the search we are soon blinded by the glory of the subject. When all is finished, all we can say is that God’s love simply loves. That is all we need to say. God is love because He loves. Sounds like a logical merry-go-round, doesn’t it? But understanding love in this way is the key to freedom. Love is not something that begins or ends. Love is not something we drum up. Love is not contingent on any prerequisites or conditions. Love simply is. God loved the world when the world was unworthy of love. That is, God simply willed to love the world. And how did He do this? His willingness was expressed by His dying on a cross for man’s sins. Did you hear that? God WILLED to love the unlovely. That is love. His love was not conditioned on us becoming more lovely. God’s love is His continuous will to love us. And because God never changes His love is everlasting. This is why the apostle can say that the one whom God loves can never be separated from that love. The the love of God is His constant willingness to love. His love rests on His will to love and nothing more. That is good news for all of us who are loved by God. It will not - it can not - ever end.

God loves whom He wills to love.

What about our love? The report is not so good. We love others because there is something in them worth loving. We love because our heart flutters in their company. We love someone because she has manifold virtues. This is a love with a beginning and an end. When the factors that spurred on the love are removed, the love ceases. Indeed, we love so long as lovely conditions perpetuate. Can we wonder why relationships in America are on life support? The problem is that we are basically an unlovely lot. To ground love in the loveliness of another is like finding beauty in one who lies on the ground deformed and bleeding. If compassion is not motivated by the will, it will die and you will walk past on the other side of the road. Love, like compassion and longsuffering and mercy, will fail every time if its existence comes from anything other than the will.

When we love others because we will to love them we are getting very much near the love of God.

So what is it to love someone? It is to do what Jesus did. It is to will to love against the resistance offered by emotions or intellectual analysis. It is to will to love when no supporting arguments to love are found. It is do what what is best for another at all times and in every way. That is an engagement of the will, nothing more, nothing less.

Nice, you say, but aren’t there any feelings in love? Is there no passion in love, no life, no butterflies?

Herein lies the mystery of love. You will to love and in the willing comes a voice that says, “It was good I willed to love you, for now I see in you a beauty I never saw before.” And where did that beauty come from? From the will to love which is like unto God’s love.

So do you want to love? Then love what you will to love. And that love is as close to God’s love as you will ever get.