Love is Hard

By: Ted Harro

Two roads diverged in the woods, and I took the one less traveled.
And it hurt, man!
Really bad. Rocks, thorns, glass!
Not cool, Robert Frost!

-Kid President

Saying vs. Doing

When you look at loving your spouse like Jesus would in your place, it gets pretty clear, pretty fast:  Love. Is. Hard.

It’s one thing to wistfully say you want to habitually see and act for the good of your spouse. Or to turn toward your spouse instead of being self-absorbed. Or to open up instead of hiding. 

It’s something completely different to do these things. That is super hard. Her little nagging habit will start to annoy you. A lurking sense of boredom may sneak up on you as you do life together year after year. He hurts you again in the same way, even after promising to never, ever do it again. 

Pretty soon, you’re just hoping not to fall into your typical conflict pattern for the umpteenth time, much less love like Jesus. Forget love. Just go for a little peace.

In fact, it’s virtually impossible to love like Jesus on our own. 

Go ahead, I dare you. Try it for one month. (Taps fingers on desk.)

Why Love Brings Us to the End of Our Rope

Trying harder to love your spouse like Jesus on your own power will quickly bring you to the end of your rope. People who want to love like Jesus are absolutely dependent on God’s power.

We sometimes think that people far from God are the ones who really need his power. In reality, those who have made the choice to become students of Jesus need his power even more. Because his way of life requires power from above in ways that make ordinary life look easy.

To love like Jesus, we need his generous outpouring of love and power in our lives. I love what Roberta Bondi says about this: “Human effort is only one of the basic elements… for love. The other is God’s grace. Without grace, nothing is possible.”

Or as Dallas Willard used to say, “(Christ-followers) use grace like a 747 uses jet fuel on takeoff.”

How much help we need from God…

How God Partners With Us

Here’s the great news: God partners with us as we learn from Jesus how to love. Bondi describes a cycle that we can live in, where we experience and use God’s power:

• I ask God for help in my real, everyday life.
• God helps me to see what’s going on in my life and how I could respond differently.
• I respond by experimenting and playfully practicing life, the Jesus way.
• God takes my tiny, feeble efforts and amplifies them. Like 1000x. (Thanks, God.)
• I start over the next day, asking God for help in my real, everyday life.

How God cooperates with us…

I’m sure you can see how this could apply to your marriage and mine. 

• You could start a day by asking God for help in your marriage. Declare defeat on self-help.
• God will help you see what’s going on – right now, today – in your marriage. If you ask, he will probably point out some way you could love your spouse like Jesus would in your place.
• After an initial moment of panic and despair, you can respond by taking a small experimental step in the right direction. 
• God will often take your paltry, imperfect attempts and magnify them. 1000x.
• Tomorrow, you start over.

This is not normal. Normal would be either trying to love your spouse well all on your own or giving up on the whole project. But normal kind of stinks.

Kid President was right. The road less traveled – the Jesus road of love – is hard, especially if you try to do it on your own. But the good news is that we’re not on our own. We’re with Jesus.