Weblog

Our outlook on life is characterised by the things in which we believe. In our lives, we will occasionally have these moments where our beliefs about certain things in life change, and when those beliefs change, the way we look at life changes.

I used to believe that we should love other people but not because loving others will produce a desirable outcome. I believed that we should love others simply because God said so. Therefore, if the outcome of our acts of love does not actually help the people who we're trying to love, we still succeeded in our duty to love.

I was wrong.

There is an old English proverb which says, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Well, it happens to be true. When we try to love others, it's all too convenient to just not think about how what we're doing might negatively affect them. Our acts of love could seriously screw over someone else's life if we aren't careful with what we do. Irresponsible love is cheap; it's worthless.

We could throw quarters to children on the streets in developing countries out of love, but we should consider that giving money to children in that situation can make them a target for others to injure or kill. When we become parents, we could try to overprotect and shelter our children from the nastiness that exists in the world, but what good will that do in the long run? Our children would finally enter the world on their own only to have their naïveté exploited by others. We could ask others to pray for someone else's struggles all while sharing information that isn't public knowledge. That's nothing short of gossip.

I could probably go on forever with the we coulds; the examples are endless. (Don't get me started on Iraq.) Cheap love can be a weapon of mass destruction — the perfect “fire-and-forget” missile in every sense of the term. This begs the question: is cheap love really even love? “Love is kind… it always protects.”¹

As Christians, we have a duty to love, and this is a duty that we need to take seriously. How will we fulfil that duty? Will we throw fake, cheap love at the problem just to get it out of the way? Sure, shooting love blindly might hit the target, but our end product could also miss and be disastrous. No, that is a chance that we cannot take. We need to put some thought into our love. Good intentions are great and admirable, but good intentions are not good enough. Concern is commendable, but companionless concern is not complete. When we love, we need to take those good intentions and concerns and reflect on our proposed course of action. How will this help? How can this hurt? Is this the best way? Is there a better way?

There is nothing in this world so precious as love. There is nothing that this world needs more than love, but what kind love will we give to that world: cheap, fake love or love that meditates on the result?

Let's think before we love.

---

1. 1^st Corinthians 13:4-7