Loving the Unlovable

Ich liebe dich. If you don’t recognize this phrase, it’s German and means “I love you.”

We German-speaking people are an odd bunch. This phrase is not something you generally hear too often, except in more formal and romantic settings, such as a marriage proposal or maybe in love letters. Ich liebe dich is usually said when the feeling is settled and enduring, rather than exploratory. It may be said to close family members, but less frequently than in Anglo cultures. Growing up, you would most often hear it said in German-dubbed American TV shows or movies. Even when McDonald’s introduced the German equivalent to their catchphrase “I’m lovin’ it”—“Ich liebe es”—it just felt off. We just don’t use the word “love” as quickly as Americans. Germans do tend to value restraint and precision in language; strong phrases are used deliberately.

Now, before you think German speakers are cold and unloving, let me assure you that is not the case. We have somewhat less “intense” ways to express the sentiment, such as Ich hab dich lieb, which means “I am fond of you” (literally, “I have love for you”). It is like the younger sister of Ich liebe dich and is used more frequently and not just in romantic relationships.

To me, there was always a certain awkwardness connected to saying “Ich liebe dich,” which I now understand was mostly because of the already-mentioned cultural reasons. Being married to a Canadian, however, and having now lived almost 12 years in the United States, I am happy to report that I have become very comfortable saying it in both German and English. Despite the possibly too-generous use of the “I love . . . ” phrase in American culture (used for everything from pizza to expressions of mundane approvals to actual relationships), it nevertheless had, I’d say, a positive, “balancing” influence on me.

Maybe you cannot relate at all to my experience, and you wonder, “Can saying ‘I love you’ really be that hard?”

Overcoming awkward cultural- and socio-linguistic tensions can be difficult depending on where you are coming from (my Asian and African friends assure me it’s not just a German “problem”); however, at the end of the day, saying “I love you” is not as hard and likely not as important as living it out.

Love Does

Our beloved and loving Germans have another saying: Liebe ist ein Tunwort—translated: “Love is a doing-word (verb).” And that is exactly where the rubber meets the road. Love is, of course, expressed in words (otherwise, the entertainment industry would collapse), but words are cheap if not anchored in tangible demonstrative experiences and related actions that back up its claims.

With each passing year I am learning more about what love is and what love does.

It’s easy to express love in spoken and written words. Often connected to idealism or aspirational thinking, confessions of devoted, consecrated love must find their tangible echo in time and space through consistent actions. So maybe the Germans are on to something by reserving the confession of Ich liebe dich for moments that are embedded in relationship settings of such deep quality.

God, who is love (1 John 4:8), demonstrated to us how to love, backing up His claims and promises with palpable selfless actions; the paramount of which is the incarnation, life, ministry, substitutional death, and resurrection of Jesus—the greatest lover this world has ever known. And doing all this, at great risk and through inconceivable pain, with no guarantee that His love would be reciprocated.

What wonderous love is this, oh my soul?

The Hardest Love

I’m a father of three little “lovely tornadoes,” as I call them (two toddlers and a baby). I love my children unconditionally. But (and there really shouldn’t be a “but” after saying “unconditionally”) at times there are intense situations—maybe after hours, days, or weeks of being stretched thin in service and sacrifice for them—during which love becomes much more a choice and less emotion. Typically, this happens for me when children-induced sleep deprivation meets stressful times, which breeds frustrations and impatience, and sometimes makes me forget for a moment that I am supposed to exemplify Christ to them. It is in those moments that my wife and I pray more fervently for God’s strength and grace to love well.

But they are our children; they love us back. There is a relational reward in parenting. Despite the challenging moments, how could we not love them?

The hardest love is the one that is to be given to those who should love you back but don’t, or who were supposed to love you first.

But what about those people who don’t or won’t love us back?

I have had my share of people whom I had to choose to love (and I am sure there are enough people who could say the same thing about me). There was that classmate who simply rubbed me the wrong way every time she opened her mouth. And that family member, whom I could blame for many personal issues I had to work through. Or that person who seemed to be undermining me behind my back for no reason. What adds to the frustration is that all of them are Seventh-day Adventist brothers and sisters, too. In a way, it would make it easier if they weren’t. Then I could at least label their behavior in my mind as “heathen” and view loving them as an evangelistic endeavor.

Well . . . isn’t true love always evangelistic—good news?

The hardest love is the one that is to be given to those who should love you back but don’t, or who were supposed to love you first, such as a parent. Loving those who, instead of providing safe, unconditional love, inflicted abuse, pain, and trauma.

In many cases, when people have been harmed in such a way, responding with anger or hatred is—from a purely human standpoint—entirely understandable. Suffering injustice, neglect, and pain where love should be reigning supreme is difficult enough; who can think of responding to it with love?

Nevertheless, Jesus says:

“I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:44, 45).

What a crazy statement from Jesus. Crazy to my sinful nature, anyway.

Love my enemies? Even those who persecute me?

Jesus, sometimes it’s hard enough to love family and friends who reciprocate love. But You are calling me to a level of love that is so ultimate, so extreme, so intense, so all-encompassing, it’s . . . it’s as though You are calling me to be like You!

“Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (verse 48).

Oh, . . . being like You is exactly what You are calling me to be.

Well, . . . how?

Perfect Love

When I went to college, I felt compelled to participate in a student-led revival week, during which we gathered for united prayer and Bible study every morning. It was a beautiful time of repentance and surrender.

At one point, closer to the end of the week, during prayer time, a certain person stood up as we were all praying on our own. He came over to me and confessed negative and judgmental feelings toward me that I was totally unaware of, asking for my forgiveness. The amazing thing was that I had harbored similar feelings for this person and felt convicted to confess, repent, and reconcile as well. It was a very meaningful and divine moment in which God enabled us both to lay down our pride and allow grace-induced and grace-infused brotherly love to take its place.

Perfect love begins with a surrender to Christ. Imperfect beings cannot produce such perfection. Only as we surrender to the Perfect One, acknowledging our inabilities and great need, only then can God begin to pour out His divine love through the Holy Spirit into the channels of our hearts. Only then do we gain the grace-induced and grace-infused ability to love the unlovable, care for the ungrateful, and minister to the ones taking advantage of our kindness.

“The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Rom. 5:5).

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love” (Gal. 5:22).

Loving the unlovable does not necessitate allowing mistreatment to endure unchecked. Love comes with boundaries. Sometimes loving someone may mean creating a safe distance from a person, while recognizing that they are most likely so broken because of a lack of real love in their own lives.

Helping, yes, loving such a person is a very difficult, painful process that can take years, requiring time for your own wounds to heal, and offers no guarantees of eventual restoration of the relationship on this earth. The void and brokenness in the abuser’s own heart may be so large and so deep that its undoing is truly a miraculous and divine process that can take a long time and require much patience and wisdom.

It is precisely this kind of love that God has been sharing with fallen humanity for thousands of years. Nobody is as patient as God. Love is the only way to create a space for lasting, genuine reconciliation, redemption, and transformation.

All You Need Is Love

In this dark world, real love can often seem hidden, dimmed, at times overlooked, or even dismissed, yet whether one realizes it or not, every single human being is seeking it and in desperate need of it. It is the driving force for all of us and the only way to thrive in life.

The desire for real love may express itself from a place of honesty, purity, and fragility, such as in a child-parent relationship or a romantic bond. Or it may reveal itself through layers of trauma and pain—stained, morphed, and distorted, and therefore anything but obvious.

We all have seasons, experiences, and relationships that seem to stretch our capacity to love. And it may be tempting and natural to avoid them. But it is specifically these harder loves—when held within appropriate boundaries—that can open opportunities for God’s love to do its work through our surrender and willingness to share it.

Love will change your world.

Love will change you.

By God’s grace, I pledge to love.

Will you too?