Growing up my mother loved me deeply. One of the ways she expressed that love was to allow me a special treat every Christmas. For that one day a year my mom would let me smoke pot with her. I have pictures of me as a young boy (perhaps 5 or 6) with a joint in my mouth and a Santa hat on my head. I do not point this out to be disrespectful to my mom or to be flippant. Later in life my mom had deep regrets about things like this and she found forgiveness from her son and her Lord. I point this out because I think it illustrates something about the nature of love.
I hear a lot of talk about love today and based on what seems to be the common definition, I think it can be said that my mom loved me by allowing me that special treat on Christmas. In the world my mom traveled in pot was a center piece. It was a recreational activity, a pleasure, enjoyed by all. I know that in her heart she wanted me to experience that gift. If the definition of love is to desire the best for another, then her act was an act of love. But that doesn’t seem quite right does it?
From this example it seems clear that love requires something else. It isn’t sufficient to simply desire the best for another. Particularly if or own understanding of what is “best” is flawed. So I offer this definition. In order to say that we are truly loving a person there must be three things present. 1) We must genuinely desire the very best for the person. 2) We must know what the very best for the person is. 3) We must be active; in so much as we are able, in the pursuit of the very best for the person. To the extent that any of these three are lacking, then our love is lacking.
This is why we recognize that the love of the women that brings a bottle of Jack Daniels home to her alcoholic husband is lacking, it fails on #2. The wife’s understanding of what is best for her husband is skewed. She has the best intentions and acts on those intentions, but she lacks understanding. Similarly we know there is something off for the man that condemns the alcoholic, while not lifting a finger to engage with him, it fails on #3 and quite possibly #1. He rightly sees the destructiveness of the behavior, but he does nothing to help the man. Both of these people have a lack of true love, but in different ways. We may be tempted to view one as being more “loving” than the other. But if our goal, in love, is to achieve the very best for the alcoholic husband then it isn’t clear to me which tact is better. What is clear is that they both fall short.
Jesus was once asked a question about what the highest goal of a person should be. He was asked “what is the greatest commandment?” Jesus replied that the greatest commandment was to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” Mt 22:37. He then went on to say that “the second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself” Mt 22:39. Jesus seems to connect our love for our neighbor directly to our love for God. The closer we draw to Him the more we will truly love our neighbor. The more we desire God’s glory, the more we will desire the best for our neighbor. The closer we draw to the Lord, the more clearly we will see what our neighbor truly needs. The more we study and act according to His will, the more we will find the work of God achieves the very best for our neighbor.
We live in a time when there is much talk of loving our neighbor and little talk of loving God. I am confident that without the latter, at best we are exercising the kind of love my mom did on Christmas. The kind of love (a.k.a. tolerance) that may have good intentions, but is deeply flawed.
The Cart Without the Horse