Love for All You’re Worth

I had a striking revelation a couple of days ago: if I love more people, I will experience more pain.

I’ll have my heart broken more often. I’ll experience more disappointment and have to work through more misunderstandings. I’ll attend more funerals and walk with more friends through difficult times.

Love is Hard

To be blunt, love isn’t easy. It asks us to do things that are hard. Things like putting others first or swallowing our pride. We have to work hard to build and keep up relationships. In fact, often it’s difficult even to know how to love and it can be tempting to love less, to love fewer.

Even though it’s tempting to live an insulated life of numbness, don’t do it. Love as many people as deeply and fully as you can. Invest your life in the lives of others. Have those difficult conversations. Walk with people through their pain. Work through misunderstandings and disappointments.

Why should I love more?

Love fully because God first loved us (1 John 4:19). In fact, God so loved us that he demonstrated his love for us by sending his son to reconcile us to him (John 3:16-18) while we were still his enemies (Romans 5:10).

Love fully because joy in love is disproportionate to pain. Because though the world is marred by sin, there is still more beauty than non-beauty. Love fully because to do anything else is to fail to live. And as followers of Jesus of Nazareth, we are called to life!