“All you need is love!”
So declare Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison and John Lennon, otherwise known as the Beatles. It’s a catchy little song that sticks in your head – sometimes for way too long. And it seems like it is the slogan of our age.
It takes very little time or energy to discover this message. Wonder Woman highlighted it. At the end, (spoiler alert for the few of you who haven’t seen it…) despite very accurately summarizing the evil present in humanity, she declares that she believes in humanity. Why? Because of love. I could come up with an entire list of movies, songs and books that espouse our need to love, and that we should be people of love. It is all over the popular culture – if only we would love each other more, accept them for who they are, work together, then life would be great. We are all one people, and should love one another.
Now of course, I totally agree with this. We should love each other more. We are all equal. We ought to accept people (although accept and agree with are not necessarily the same). Love is the most powerful force in the universe and it could totally change the world. In some sense, it is all we need.
Unfortunately, we are terrible at love.
Now, I don’t want to paint too unfair of a picture or deny reality. Of course people are capable of love. And there are tons of different examples of love. We are (generally) good at loving our families. We are (generally) good at loving our kids. We are (generally) good at being polite and respectful in everyday interactions with people. We are (generally) good at loving people from a distance, people who agree with us, people who treat us well and people who align with our own beliefs and causes. And we can be especially good at dramatic gestures of love for our loved ones or in moments of crisis. So we are definitely capable of love and even of deep, passionate love.
Unfortunately, life is not made up of moments of crisis, dramatic gestures, and people that are easy to love. Life is made up of all of us. And once we extend beyond our small world of ease, the degree of love that we show decreases dramatically. We love our kids, but not the teacher who treats them unfairly, the bully who is harassing them, or the employer who won’t give them the hours they need to survive. We love our neighbours and the people on the street – until they are an inconvenience to us or interfere with our peace and comfort. We love the poor, as long as we only have to sacrifice minimally to help them. We love other people, unless they disagree with us politically or philosophically. We love our spouses or significant others passionately, but not always practically. Dinner? Movie? Romantic getaway? Great! Pick up the clothes? Help with the cleaning? Forgive a minor offence? Not so easy. We love deeply in a moment of crisis (earthquake, death, shootings, etc.), then forget and carry on with our life as soon as possible.
As I said, I don’t want to paint too dramatic of a picture, but I also want to point out the obvious – we are not as good at love as we think we are. Consider the following questions:
- How well do you love people when you are tired, stressed or unmotivated to do so?
- How well do you love those who disagree with you?
- How quickly can you forgive and love those who offend you? Or who hurt you deeply?
- How often do you really know what is best for someone else and how often do you just follow the trends of society or guess at what is best? In other words, is your love for them actually love, or does it accidentally end up harming them?
- How willing are you to sacrifice for others to show love? I mean really sacrifice – give up eating out to help feed the homeless in your community, set aside your agenda for the evening to let your spouse/partner do what they want, etc.?
My point (especially with that last one) is not to make you feel overwhelmingly guilty, or to argue that you should never think of yourself. There is a balance to find between taking care of yourself (being healthy) and sacrificing for others. Nor is it my desire to belittle the idea of love. I do think that the Beatles were onto something when they sang that all we need is love. It’s just that I think we need some help to love, and to love well. And I’m pretty confident that I know where to look.
In the Bible we find an interesting little comment: “God is love” (1 John 4:8). We also find one of the most beautiful descriptions of love (1 Corinthians 13:1-8, 13), a description of the power of love (Song of Songs 8:6-7), and the best example of love in Jesus, who lived a life of love and then was willing to die for us to restore our connection with God.
What has happened, though, is that we have disconnected love from God. We have made love our goal, not recognizing that we’re not very good at identifying what is loving behaviour and only sporadically successful at showing love to others – especially those who are difficult to love. What’s more, love, being alternately a concept, a feeling or a verb, is not something that we can easily capture or hold onto. It is elusive, easily misguided and often misinformed. It is a fickle mistress. Especially when guided by our heart, which Jeremiah accurately describes as “deceitful above all things and beyond cure” (Jer. 17:9). Just as we tend to think love by itself is the answer, so we think that we are good enough to understand and guide it in the way it should go. There is a good reason that Jesus himself said, “No one is good – except God alone” (Mark 10:18). Although we do get love right at times, we very often do not. We need help.
So where do we turn? I think there is no better source than God himself, who is love and the source of love. There is no better example than Jesus Christ, who modelled love (even for the difficult and even when it cost him tremendously) and offers to us that unconditional love that we long for. There is no better guide than the Bible, which shows us what God loves and what love should look like, rather than what the shifting sands of culture try to tell us. There is no better power than the Holy Spirit, Christ himself living in us, to help us to love when we find it impossible to do so ourselves.
Christianity has always been defined by its love. In different times and places, followers of Christ have forgotten that, got sidetracked by culture, failed and modelled anything but love. And at times, even with God’s guidance, it is difficult to know how to love well. But in God (more specifically, in Christ), we have the source, the example, the guide and the power to live lives of love. If we pursue Him, we get love. If we pursue love, we end up all over the place.
So if you, like so many, long for our world to be a place of love, I encourage you to establish that connection with Jesus or (if you are already a Christian) to look closely at your life in light of his example and guidance.
Love truly is all we need. As long as we understand “love” to be “God”.
Wallpaper courtesy of Analaurasam.
https://analaurasam.deviantart.com/art/wallpaper-all-you-need-is-love-388228814
Kingdom Call 
One thought on “Is Love Really Enough?”