I remember very vividly what it was like for me to fall in love for the first time.
It was peace. It was passion. It was pain.
Yes. Pain. Deep, searing, excruciating pain. A pain that intensified the more deeply I fell in love with this person. A pain that drove from my mind into my heart and soul like a knife, slowly turning.
Love for me was pain because of the way I was wired. My mind—for as long as I can remember—has always naturally thought in the most rational, logical way. I lean more towards thinking than feeling; I want facts and statistics, not risks based on hunches.
So, almost immediately after I realized I was in love I also realized something else: I was going to get hurt.
Based on all of the numbers and on all of the reasoning, the chances of me and this person remaining in love like this forever was nearly impossible. And this idea—this assumed certainty that this thing could only end in heartbreak and rejection—molded the way that I approached the relationship. I was cynical and mistrusting and afraid.
Most people get angry at love after they’ve been hurt by someone who they were in love with. For me, it was different: I was angry at love from the moment I met it.
It came suddenly, and all at once; this idea that love was ugly and painful and ultimately pointless. My distorted view of love consumed me.
Believing that love was only suffering caused my relationship with this person to slowly implode. I was always suspicious of her. I was jealous of others who got close to her. I was bitter when she found happiness from a source other than me. I became callous and hard. This callousness—this hardness—put an unbearable strain on the love that we had found all that time before.
So, she walked away. From me. From that love.
And me? I walked away from love altogether. If this was love, I didn’t want it.
So, for a while, I ran from love. Any time I would feel any sort of love-like feelings bubbling inside me, I would cower and hide from them. I thought that somehow I could get through life without concerning myself with love. It was as if love was a contract I could opt out of.
But—deep down—I knew this wasn’t right. I could feel God tugging at my heartstrings as if he was trying to wake me up somehow. Yet, every time that I felt him gently nudge me I would simply roll back over and pull that blanket of callousness and hardness back over me.
Here’s a shocker, though: God has a way of getting past our defenses regardless of whether we want him to or not. And, eventually, he convinced me to open myself up to at least the idea of relationship.
This didn’t go well.
My warped view of love followed me—haunted me. No matter how much I would try to hide it or beat it into submission, it would resurface with all of its anger and distrust. Any time I thought I was ready to enter into any sort of romantic relationship again, that cynical voice would whisper to me, reminding me of the destruction left in the wake of my last experience with love.
Have you ever heard the story of Gomer and Hosea (Hosea 1)?
Hosea had spent his entire life as a prophet through which God spoke to the people of Israel. One day, God comes to Hosea and tells him that he is to go out and find a wife. Not just any wife, though. God tells Hosea to go and marry a prostitute. To go and marry a woman who has a shady past. To go and marry a woman who is more than likely going to end up hurting Hosea through her adulteress ways.
Essentially, God is telling Hosea to jump into a relationship knowing that the love will be broken. Hosea is supposed to dive headfirst into this love that he knows will end up giving him an unimaginable amount of emotional and spiritual pain. Hosea knows the odds—he understands the statistics.
And, despite all that, Hosea does it. He seeks out the prostitute Gomer and he takes her as his wife, knowing that she will crush him and leave his heart in pieces.
And guess what. Gomer does, in fact, end up betraying Hosea; she goes back into prostitution.
But, get this. Hosea seeks Gomer out. Again. And, not only does he go out into the darkness to find her, but he buys her from her “owner.” Hosea pays for the love that rightfully belongs to him. Hosea redeems Gomer.
See, in my logical, analytical mind it makes absolutely no sense for Hosea to go back in search of the love that treated him so roughly, much less for him to sacrifice for her. Why on earth would Hosea be so foolish as to run back into a place where he knows sorrow is waiting for him?
Why?
Because that’s what real love is.
It hit me; and this sudden revelation uprooted all I thought I had known about love.
Hosea kept going back to love, knowing that it was going to beat him up and break him. He didn’t convince himself that love would be all happiness and warm feelings all of the time. No, he understood the pain that was so perfectly evident in love.
But, he loved anyway; unconditionally and sacrificially.
This is the story of the cross; this is the story of us and Jesus.
We are Gomer; He is our Hosea.
Jesus knew that loving us would bring Him unimaginable pain and unfathomable sorrow. But—you absolutely cannot miss this—He chose that love anyway.
Yes. Jesus chose our broken, dirty, ragamuffin love. He went into the darkness to pursue us. He bought a love that was rightfully His on a hill that He himself had spoken into existence. He knew the facts. He had analyzed the statistics. There was no way we could give Him a love that was flawless or pain-free or even faithful. He counted those costs and He still gladly chose that love.
In the greatest act of love the world will ever know, Jesus chose us by choosing the cross.
Hearing the story of Hosea’s love for Gomer somehow ripped the curtains off of my eyes. I found love in a moment exploding with life.
“We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
If Jesus surrendered to love with the full knowledge of the painful mess that it would be, then so should I. So will I.
Of course love is a risk. Jesus knew this. He knew that choosing us was no guarantee that we would choose Him in return. Yet, He decided that love was more important than any physical or emotional or even spiritual suffering He might feel.
He knew the truth that there is no greater commandment than to love. To love God and to love others (Mark 12:29-31; Matthew 22:37-40; Luke 10:27-28; John 13:34-35).
This is it. This is our great command. This is—above all else—why we were created.
To love fiercely.
To love patiently.
To love unconditionally.
To love fearlessly.
To love even when it hurts.
To love through tears.
To love in the midst of betrayal.
To love against all doubt.
To love despite the odds.
To love from the overflow of love that is so freely given to us from above.
To love. To just love.
So, be the Hosea to everyone you encounter, knowing that at some point you are going to be a Gomer to someone else.
But—no matter what—never give up on love.
When all’s said and done all that matters is love; so, let love take over.
Do this and you’ll realize that—statistically speaking—living love equals loving life.
