Love Hurts — Morning Devotions

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It was back in July 1960 that the Everly Brothers released the song Love Hurts. It wasn’t a big hit for them. Eventually, other artists recorded their own versions, like the rock band Nazareth, and then by the English singer-songwriter Jim Capaldi. I think a few other artists have done their own version. Quite a nice song. Love Hurts, Love scars, Love wounds and Mars, Any heart not tough enough or strong enough. to take a lot of pain, love is like a cloud. It holds a lot of rain. Some fools rave of happiness, blissfulness, togetherness. Some fools fool themselves, but they’re not fooling me. I know it isn’t true. Love is just a lie to make you blue – love hurts. Interesting words, aren’t they?

They seem to be talking about the negative effect of love, like anger and pain and sadness and jealousy. All these human emotions that have been written about many times, sung about, nothing new in all of this. If you love someone with all your heart and they don’t love you, then love does hurt. How many broken relationships have occurred when love has been rejected. So when we say love hurts, I think we may have it round the wrong way. It’s not love that hurts, it’s loneliness that hurts – rejection, losing someone, envy. Everyone gets these things confused with love, but love is the only thing in this world that covers up all the pain and makes someone feel wonderful again.

Love is the only thing in this world that does not hurt

So someone who truly loves you sees what a mess you can be one day, how hard it can be for them to handle you, but they still want to be around you and love you. They haven’t rejected you. But a question this morning, have you been betrayed or rejected? Time, well, it buries our hurts, numbs our senses, but only Jesus can truly heal our hurts and carry our burdens and set us free.

In the Old Testament, Psalm 147:3 says the Lord heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He is the only one who can restore and turn broken into brand new. People will always fall short, let us down, but Jesus will not, putting my faith in Him instead of other people, is teaching me what true love really is. I think that most of us don’t fully realise how much we love someone or something until it’s taken away from us, and we often confuse the word love.

For the spine tingling feeling we get when we’re attracted to someone, most of us know there’s a difference between love and attraction. You might have had your heart broken or the attraction ran out in the middle of the first date when you realised that you couldn’t stand that person sitting across the table from you. But there’s also a lot more to this. It’s in choosing who you love. You are choosing also to suffer sometimes. It’s not the stuff of Hollywood movies. If we really sign up to love that special person, truly and deeply, you will experience some pain or maybe suffering along the way.

We are created this way to live in harmony with other people, and Jesus calls us to love others simply out of our love for God, no strings attached, and that can be very difficult. We stuff our hurts deep into our souls instead of giving our pain over to Jesus. We ignore it to the point that it either explodes or springs forth into bitterness and anger. Either way, it’s not a pretty picture.

Love requires suffering because our ultimate example, Jesus Christ, shows us that suffering is part of the process. For God so loved the world, the Bible says that he gave us His only begotten Son Jesus, who knew the pain and sorrow associated with the cross, and still went through with it whilst dying for us. Why? Because of His great love for us. The New Testament book of Hebrews says that it was for the joy that was set before him that he endured the cross. In other words, he endured.

Suffering because of the result of what was going to be accomplished. I found that Proverbs 4:23 has got some reassuring words for us today. And take this as your word from God, and it says, above all else, watch over your heart, diligently guarded, because from a sincere and pure heart come the good and noble things of life. If you’ve been hurt by life circumstances or someone has shattered your life, own the hurt. Don’t own other people’s stuff.

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Be true to yourself and leave God to deal with the difficult people in your life because you are only answerable for your own actions.

Let’s Pray

Lord, we’ve been thinking today about this big topic of love. Does love hurt? Sometimes it does. Lord, if we’re vulnerable to people and circumstances and what happens, there will be times of hurt and possibly deep disappointment. I pray that we will gain a better understanding as we turn to You. I pray for this wisdom from you in Jesus’ name. Amen.