Tough Love

Boyfriend.

Daughter.

Girlfriend.

Son.

Husband.

Wife.

Friend.

Brother.

Mentor.

Co-worker.

In-laws.

Parents.

Sister.

Each of these words showcases a relationship with someone else, and each of them come with an emotional charge. You know how I know? I’ve spent hours in the last week talking to people who sought me out for advice about how to handle each of these relationships.

I had a young lady confide in me about how hatefully her friend was talking about her as she called her dumb, told her wasn’t good at one of her hobbies, and told her she shouldn’t even try to pursue another endeavor. She was crushed. She thought they were friends, but a friend wouldn’t speak that into a true friendship, would they?

A young lady asked me how my marriage was so great and why could her boyfriend not seem to act that way toward her. She thought things were ok after the last time they argued over a rumor that this boy cheated on her, and she keeps wondering why everyone is telling her that she should just get out. After all, he does talk to her sometimes in the hallway, and he said everything would be fine. She said, “Everything is just a miscommunication, so I guess it’s fine.”

I hear so many conversations about the struggle of having in-laws. I hear the complaint that they just don’t understand, they try to control, they only want things done their way…the list goes on.

None of these instances are uncommon today, and if we really traced it back, they wouldn’t be uncommon in decades past either. While I am no expert on love, and I have messed it up more times than I care to try to count, I have learned one definite thing: loving people is tough. We are all sinners that bring our own messes to the relationship, and when two messes collide, it explodes into an even bigger mess.

The only way we stand to see a relationship thrive is if we keep three things in mind:

We are not the givers of perfect love. God is. The absolute, only way we have any capacity to love anyone at all is because of God Himself.

If we look through 1 John 4, we learn that God is love, and our ability to love is based on the fact that we are loved. As a matter of fact, we are so loved that we have an abundance of love to pour out if we are in Christ. It is literally our job to express our relationship with Christ and honor Him by loving those around us. It’s a perfect love, and we do not have to fear losing it.

Society wants us to believe otherwise, of course. They want us to believe the lie that we can lose love, and love has started to be held as a ransom almost. If we don’t measure up, if we don’t do what someone wants us to do, then we stand to have love withheld. We stand to be left out in the cold, not knowing that true love is unconditional and is not earned by merit, status, or what we have to offer. It’s this knock-off version of love that runs out when things get tough, and it isn’t willing to see things through to the other side. We neglect to remember that we all fail, and if we are to love others well, we have to rely on the One who never fails, the One who is never changing (James 1:17). We must press into genuine love (Romans 12:9).

Communication is key.

Because we are not God, we cannot read minds, and we cannot expect others to either. We have to be humble enough and wise enough to approach others with our concerns, our apologies, our dreams, our hearts. When we have been hurt, we have to tell the person that hurt us, but we have to do it in a way that is loving and humble. (1 Corinthians 13:5, Ephesians 4:15)

Some of the most disastrous relationship struggles have come from a refusal to communicate. Either we aren’t willing to set aside our pride and tell the other person that we were hurt, or, if we were the ones that did the hurting, that we are sorry. We are often not willing to speak openly because of a fear of looking weak. And let me tell ya, some of the strongest people I know are the ones who are able to admit when they are wrong (Ephesians 4:2-3).

It isn’t about us. Any relationship we have is not about us. Yes, absolutely, we were created for relationship, but the relationship we crave most is the one we have with God; there is a hole in our souls that only He can fill, and any relationship we have outside of that is meant to bring Him glory.

Romans 12:10 talks about our job to love one another with brotherly affection and to work to love others better than they are loving you. Why? It is good; it is a mark of a true Christian. In 1 John 4, we are told that we cannot say we love God and then refuse to love others - that’s basically an oxymoron.

Loving others with real love, even in the time of Christ walking the earth, flies in the face of what society wants for us. Today, it’s about what we can get out of relationships, not what we can give. It’s about how we are served, but in Matthew 5:44, Jesus makes a bold statement when He says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” Why in the world would He tell us to love our enemies and to pray for them? If we’re honest, I certainly don’t want to do that. But the reality is that we are called to it for specific reasons: it’s about God getting glory, we can’t help but love those we are praying for, and it makes us see people as God sees them. Ultimately, praying for our enemies, is a showcase of God at work in us.

While these things are the crux of successful relationships, it doesn’t mean they are easy. It’s never easy to see others through the eyes of God because we are so quick to see with the eyes of the world. But we don’t have to stay there. We are new creations with new thought patterns, we are being made righteous through the work of Christ on the cross, and we no longer have to settle for the ways of the world.

But let’s not kid ourselves, it’s tough to love others like God does, but that kind of love….

Well, that’s tough love.