Love Hurts, But It Doesn't Have To

Chances are you’ve experienced a difficult relationship. If you haven’t, I’m not pointing fingers, but you were probably the difficult half of the relationship. Just sayin’. She said something that offended you. He cheated on you. She left without saying goodbye. He ate the last bite of cheesecake. SOMETHING has happened. I don't know your story; you do, so you can fill in whatever it was.

If you’re anything like me you’ve held on to that offense. You’ve stored it away for safekeeping (so you can bring it up later and then again sometime after that). Instead of letting it go, instead of moving forward, instead of forgiving, you got mad and stayed mad and now you’re bitter and full of resentment. How could they do this to you? Look how they’ve made you feel! Sound familiar?

Unhealthy relationships are the result of an unhealthy view of love. Let me say that again… unhealthy relationships are the result of an unhealthy view of love. You probably asked, “Ok, what’s a HEALTHY view of love?” (I wrote about it yesterday. If you missed it you can read it here). When we have an unhealthy view of love we look for it in all the wrong places, not because we WANT to experience bad relationships, we just don’t know where to look. We’re constantly searching for love in a WHAT when we should be looking for a WHO (and that who just so happens to be God… read 1 John 4:8).

Love hurts, but it doesn’t have to.

Let’s dig a little deeper. When you have an unhealthy view of love you will set unfair expectations on love. Each of us has a God-sized hole within us that only God can fill (hence the reason it’s a ‘God-sized’ hole). Nothing measures up. We try and fill the hole and always come up short. Think about it, that’s a BIG hole. Nothing and no one meets our expectations. Nothing and no one satisfies us the way we want or need. Nothing and no one’s ever good enough. So we point fingers and fight and fuss. This is the point where you go, “Aha! Love hurts!” Yes, it does, but it doesn’t have to.

As our view of love starts to transition from unhealthy to healthy, from placing value in a person or a thing to placing value in God, our ability to love and be loved changes too. We’ve been looking for a person to complete us (thank you, Jerry Maguire) when it’s God who makes us whole. We’ve been stressing because we thought we had the ability to do the same for our spouse and kept coming up short (now you know why). Love hurts and continues to hurt when you think you gotta do God’s part in the relationship (which is BE God). God doesn’t say complete the other person; God says to LOVE them.

39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
Matthew 22:39 NIV

Because so many of us, if not all of us, have an unhealthy view of love, we struggle to love ourselves. How can you love someone else when you don’t even love yourself? How can you GIVE what you don’t even HAVE? How can you love someone else when you don’t even know WHO love is? An unhealthy view of love leads to unfair expectations and those unfair expectations make it REALLY hard to love your neighbor because they just fall short time and time again. I can’t love my neighbor I don’t even LIKE them! I don’t believe that. I think you struggle to love your neighbor because you don’t even like you! Maybe those unfair expectations that we tend to place on others have been placed on YOU by YOU. Maybe YOU’RE not living up to your own expectations and let yourself down time and time again. And if you let yourself down, how could you possibly trust someone else?

Doesn’t this all seem a bit crazy? Yes! It does because IT IS! Love hurts, but it doesn’t have to. It all begins and ends with a HEALTHY view of love and a HEALTHY view of love is this: GOD IS LOVE! Throw all your expectations out the door, realize we’re all just hurting people, and love them because God loves you.