Love and Pain

I have been visiting a new definition of love lately. It has been hard to sit with.

I am beginning to see that real love is really about embracing pain. Because love is about giving to that other person, and if it doesn't cost us something, it isn't really love. If there is benefit in an act that leaves us getting something from the act, that is about us, not that other person. To be truly selfless is to put that other person ahead of ourselves.

If I have a million dollars in the bank and I give $1000 away, it isn't love. There isn't really any pain in that. When I give the million away, that hurts. There is a cost to my gift. Remember when Jesus talked about the widow giving her two pennies away? He said she had given more than everybody else, because it cost her something. He says the money wasn't coming out of her excess - it was coming out of her need. She didn't have anything - it was painful to give it. That is why it was love.

When I stop along to the road to help someone with car troubles, it is kindness. When it cost me something - late to work, money to help them out, etc - then it is love. If it is convenient, it isn't love. I am not saying that kindness isn't valuable. I am saying that real love (not our 21st century definition, but the Jesus definition) costs. It can't not.

The Greek word in the Bible for love is Agape. It means that we aim for what is in the best interest of another person, regardless of the cost to us personally. I see so much of what we call love today is really about being nice to a person, not real sacrifice.

Jesus wasn't nice. He was love. There is a big difference.......