By John Buttrey II

        When asked to describe love, many would talk of what a wonderful feeling it is to be loved, or to love. In thinking of love, most would probably describe the joy and the happiness that love can bring into one’s life. Some would perhaps describe the beauty of love. Quaint little sayings about love have become popular over the years, like, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

        Love is indeed wonderful and beautiful. It can bring joy and happiness into our life. But I think it is important we understand that love is much more than pretty poems, colorful cards, and heart-warming love songs. Love is much more than an emotional feeling of joy or happiness.

        There is what we could call, a dark side to love. In speaking of the “dark side” of love we are not referring to anything evil about love; ironically this is an aspect of love that is very good! In many respects, the dark side of love is how love deals with evil. Deep down, we know this dark side of love exists, we just don’t like to talk or think about it—that’s why it is dark. It is an aspect of love that we don’t shine the light upon; yet is what real love is all about.

        We much prefer the warm emotional feelings of love. In fact, we tend to focus so much on the joyous emotional side of love that we often forget about the intellect of love—which is really what the agape love to which God calls us, is all about. Agape love is not a love based on emotion—certainly it is a part of it; but not the whole. Agape love is a love that is truly from the heart. It is the intelligent and mental part of loving. It is loving because; or in spite-of; all of which requires much more than just simply emotion. There are times when emotion alone will fail us, if we limit our understanding of love to such. That said, may we talk for a moment about this dark side of love? I know we typically don’t like to hear or think about it; but we need to!

         We need to be reminded that sometimes love hurts. It certainly hurt Jesus. The truth is, love is not always easy. It is not always pretty roses, poems, and love songs. Love often asks the difficult and the seemingly impossible! Love asked the Word to become flesh and dwell among us (Jn. 1:14). Love asked Jesus to take upon Himself our human weaknesses and frailties (Heb. 2:14ff). Love asked Him to be tempted and to overcome it (Matt. 4:1ff). Love asked Him to bear our sins, to become sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). Love asked Him to surrender to the hands of cruel men who would beat Him, spit upon Him, mock Him, strip Him, and pierce His hands and feet with nails (Matt. 26:39-42). Love asked Him to die on the cross for His enemies; for sinners (Rom. 5:6-8). Love asks the difficult. We cannot refuse to do the difficult things which love asks simply because we don’t feel emotional warmth and joy in doing it!

         Love asks parents to discipline their children (Eph. 6:4). Though often difficult, if a parent neglects discipline… if they allow their child to just run free with no guidelines or instruction, do we still call that love? In the same way, love asks a church on certain occasions to discipline a brother or sister who are walking contrary to the word of God (Rom. 16:17-18; 2 Thess. 3:6, 14). In this way, love will ask that we refrain from associating with such a one in certain activities—difficult to do, but necessary if we are really going to love.

         Love asks us to forgive freely those who have sinned against us (Eph. 4:32). We may think it unfair, we may still feel hurt, but can we refuse (legitimately) to love and thereby not forgive simply because it is too hard! By the way, love does mean saying you’re sorry!

         Love will require us to speak a timely word of rebuke to a friend (Pr. 27:6). It may hurt, it may be difficult, but a true friend will do so in love. Can love see another involved in sin and keep silent because it is too hard to say something, or because we are afraid of hurting their feelings?

         Love will require us at times to forfeit a liberty so as to not create a stumbling block for our brother or sister (Rom. 14-15:3). Remember a liberty is a freedom. That means not only the freedom to do it, but also the freedom to not do it for the sake of my brother.

         Love will require us to stand for the truth when it is unpopular and difficult to do so. Love will ask us to support the truth when our emotion tells us to do the opposite. Remember, faith comes by hearing, not from emotion.

         Don’t stop loving when it becomes too hard, that’s when love is needed the most! Don’t stop loving when emotionally there is no happy feeling; love when it hurts to love! When love asks the difficult of you, remember how it asked the same of God. “For God so loved the world…” How much, and how far, will we really love?