The Challenge of Love — A LifeWords Devotion

Loving another human being is about the most challenging exercise in life. It is relatively easy to fall in love. Doing nice things for those who do nice things for us comes quite naturally. Making a big show of being charitable and generous feeds our egos.

But none of that is love as the Bible teaches us. Love is more than a feeling, more than a tit for tat exchange of favours. Love is more than saying the right things. Love is not the same as liking.

Love is thinking, speaking and acting in a way that does good for another person. We do not wait to feel loving before actually loving. C.S. Lewis says that the first step in love is to act as if we love that other person. Do the loving thing without conjuring up a feeling of love. He reckons that this initial act can lead to loving feelings.

This is not hypocritical pretence either. We are not pretending to have loving feelings: we are simply doing what might benefit the other person. Our feelings might not yet be quite “right”, but we are still doing good. To wait for the feeling might be waiting too long to do any good.

Feelings are important, and it is good when our fond feelings correspond to our practical actions. But let’s not put the cart before the horse. Do the loving thing first and then let the other things follow.

David