Love doesn’t always feel good

Much of the writing done by the Apostle Paul would not get past a copy editor. The content is absolutely wonderful, but his structure is difficult to understand, and his sentences are way too long.

Yesterday and today I’m at a writer’s conference and while the focus is seldom on grammar, just being there made me notice that the Scripture reading for today (verse 19) is part of a section with two sentences (8-12 and 14-19), each with more than 100 words! The latter one says,

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height — to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14-19)

Regardless of his long sentences, Paul writes marvelous truth for those who belong to Jesus. This passage is at the heart of Christian living. It essentially says that knowing the love of Jesus and having His Spirit living within me is the only way to love others as God loves me. Unless I know the love of Christ, I cannot begin to comprehend how to love others.

The devotional reading has a list of ways to show the love of Christ. It includes things like mend a quarrel, call a friend you haven’t seen for a long time, tell someone you know well how much he or she means to you, express thanks to others throughout the day, and send a check to someone who has a need.

As I read it, I thought that I’ve done many of those things recently, but the odd thing is that I’ve had very little of the emotions a person expects to go with showing love. Instead, my mind was occupied with what God was telling me to do and with what the other person needed. This might be part of what Paul meant when he wrote, “to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.”

I do understand that Christ loves me far more than I can comprehend. However, the nature of His love is not the same as my normal interpretation of love. Even though I say otherwise, I tend to think that if I am loving someone, I will have feelings regarding that person. Today I’m wondering if Christ had great feelings of affection for us when He was committing His greatest act of love? When He was dying on the cross, did He enjoy the emotions I associate with love? I don’t think so.

Exploring the topic of love always points me to believing that love really is action and a choice, not so much about emotions and feelings. If it were otherwise, I now realize how easy it is to slip into doing the actions of loving others because it makes me feel good. That gives those actions a selfish and unloving motivation which would make me unloving and a hypocrite.

This is helpful for me today. I’m with a group of people that are dear to me. I’m doing the right things, encouraging them, not focused on me, and as near as I can am obeying the Lord. However, I have no emotions and am even fighting negative emotions. I don’t want to be there. The temptation is to just leave and come home as I’m bombarded with thoughts like, “Why am I here?” related to “What’s in this for me?” along with counter thoughts such as, “This is not about you.”

Love is a sacrificial act. This is the first time God has asked me to sacrifice the ‘feel good’ part of loving others and just do it. I’m arguing with Him by thinking that love is produced by the Holy Spirit and He also produces joy. Where is the joy? And He says back to me that if the reason I’m willing to love others is simply for the joy I get out of it, then I’m being selfish and not loving others at all, at least not with the love of Christ.

Again, I hear God saying, “Suck it up, girl. This is not about you.”