Radio stations and Spotify playlists overflow with love songs. Musical love is eternal, like an unchained melody. Haddaway asks, “What is love?” and Pat Benatar answers: love is a battlefield. The songs make it sound easy, with Beyonce being “crazy in love,” the Beatles promising that “all you need is love,” and Whitney Houston declaring, “I will always love you!“
I’d go hungry, I’d go black and blue
I’d go crawling down the avenue
No, there’s nothing that I wouldn’t do
To make you feel my love
But the hit song that most captures the essence of love is Bob Dylan’s 1997 song, “Make You Feel My Love,” which has been covered by Adele, Billy Joel, Garth Brooks, and hundreds of others. Where other hits capture the bliss of falling in love or the agony of heartbreak, Dylan’s simple poetry speaks of lifelong love, through highs and lows. As we recently celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary, I couldn’t help but appreciate that through the long-term commitment of marriage, Dylan’s description of love is far more sustaining than the romance of our early years: self-giving, generous, open-handed, hopeful, and warm.
M. Scott Peck says that love is “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” Love is desire in action, requiring effort and motivation. It requires us to take the extra step, go the extra mile, all for the purpose of someone’s spiritual growth. “Love is not effortless,” Peck says. “To the contrary, love is effortful.”
This kind of active, effort-ful love has shown up in parenthood more than anything else in my past. In order to love my son well, I must take my desire for his wholeness and growth and turn it into action. It’s not enough for me to want him to be healthy: I must provide nutritious foods, teach healthy habits, and model them each day. No matter how many times I think about activities he might enjoy, it’s actually doing those activities together that allows him to experience the love of our family. Over and over, I am discovering that he feels most loved when we sit down to play with him (even if he insists that ‘buying more toys’ would be more effective).
Jesus explained love this way: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” He demonstrated that love every time he spoke out against the authorities, every time he shunned power in favor of compassion, and as he died on the cross to “make you feel [his] love.” I pray that you would come to experience the love of God that has been poured out through Jesus for you. May you see, know, and feel that you are loved exactly as you are, right now. There’s nothing you could ever do to make God love you any more or any less than God loves you right now.
May God’s unconditional love change you, heal you, and empower you. And may you make the choice, day by day, to take “effortful” steps to love one another.
What do you think? Is love supposed to be effortless?
Let me know in the comments!
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Rev. Carissa Surber is passionate about having deep conversations with everyday people about what vibrant Christian living looks like in the 21st century. She enjoys singing, dancing, board games, and hiking with her family. Read more here