This post is going to be somewhat of a stream of consciousness - a legitimate "brain drain", if you will - that I've been bouncing off of various and sundry people over the last couple of weeks. It's something that has sprung up in my thoughts as I've attempted to wrap my brain around the idea of solitude and God's unconditional love. As a church, we're getting set to talk about the 1-2 punch of relationships (not just husband/wife, but friend, platonic, romantic, etc.) and missional living, something that requires learning how to love unconditionally in order to be successful.
So, the thoughts that I've been having have basically centered on the contradictory nature of the following responses that I have observed in life: why is it that a man is considered a fool for loving a woman unconditionally (especially when that love is unrequited) and yet would be considered "spiritual" if he loves God in the same manner? On it's face, this probably doesn't sound like a difficult question, so let me add to it a little bit. Out of the same mouth comes admonition to "move on" if human love is not returned on the one hand, and exhortation to "love no matter what" on the other. How can we love God in a way that we can't love a human being?
I don't know that I'm anywhere close to having an answer to this question. I've been thinking back on many conversations that I've had with guy friends over the years who have the attitude of "just cut her loose and don't waste anymore cycles on her" if a woman that he's interested in does not return his affections, and I'm convinced that that kind of thinking just has to have an impact on the way that we love God. I know in my head that God is an infallible being and is perfectly able to love without condition, and is worthy to be loved as such while humans are not, but I'm wondering how having conditional love for people here on this earth gets us any closer to being able to love God in an unconditional manner. 1 Corinthians 13 would seem to indicate that we should love someone passionately regardless of their response or return.
As I've studied solitude and the beattitudes, it is becoming clearer to me that unconditional love can only come when you are able to love yourself. Separating out our love for God and our love for fellow human beings by the dichotomy shown in the opening statements ("don't waste time" on someone who doesn't return your affections and then being conversely admonished to unquestioningly and unconditionally love a God no matter how He chooses to treat you) makes it a thousand times more difficult to have a concept of a) how God loves us and b) why we should love God. I think it's kind of impossible to have any notion of solitude without having unconditional love.
As an aside here, I want to comment a bit on that "why we should love God" statement because I know that some of you have your hackles up about that already. It goes back to a post I wrote a while ago about not being able to hear what God's voice sounds like and the assertion that most of us don't know what it sounds like. I make statements like "why should we love God?" with the notion that most people who read this probably feel similarly to me in regards to God being a distant king, or someone that can be persuaded by actions, etc. Very rarely have I gotten an immediate response to something I've been asking God for and since I can't hear him very well, sometimes it seems like he just doesn't answer me (even though my head knows that he does). That's the tach that I'm taking here - the idea that God has this plan for me but when I can't hear a response, it's the same feeling as unrequited love with a woman...an image of trying to get someone's attention but not being able to do so. Because there's not an immediate response, a voice, a flash of light, a plague of locusts, whatever, I often times feel a "yeah, but what have you done for me lately?" sort of attitude towards God. And hence, that's where this question comes from.
But, I digress. Where was I? Oh yes, solitude requires unconditional love. "Love" is a pretty strong word and evokes some pretty strong emotions upon the mere mention of it in conversation. I've been noticing (and I don't think it's been just within myself) that the disconnect here is that when the word "love" is spoken, we immediately think only in the romantic sense (or, I suppose, in the intensely close best friend scenario like David & Jonathan). I don't think that agape love as the foundation of both eros and fileo is recognized and there's some sort of separation there such that when a relationship moves out of eros (e.g. a break up) or fileo (e.g. a best friend moves away), it's incredibly difficult to go back to an agape sort of love.
By way of example, a relationship between a man and woman starts with agape (I love you for who you are as Christ made you) and then one person decides to make a play to move the relationship into eros. A whole different set of expectations is placed and the other party decides not to return those sentiments, keeping the relationship from progressing into that romantic direction. Now, my point here is that it will be very difficult to go back to the basic agape love because there's generally a dialing back of passion. In the "cut her loose" scenario, the person wanting more is admonished to stop thinking about the other, stop deferring to the other, and basically to stop considering the other - just throw them back in the dustbin with everyone else that chooses to maintain a distance. An interesting side question: how does one "cut your losses" with eros but also continue to love that person unconditionally and passionately in an agape sense when the intimacy was spurned?
That took me on another train of thought, then - can the idea of romance, or even the word, be applied to agape or fileo love? Don't necessarily get hung up on the word itself - I'm talking about the idea. I think there are several fine examples of passionate non-erotic love in the Bible - David & Jonathan, Mary & Martha, Jesus and the apostles - but I've noticed that this is not really done in today's society. We don't have passionate agape love for strangers; we don't do any of the things as laid out in 1 Cor. 13 because those things make us gullible or liable to be taken advantage of. As a result, we compartmentalize our passion for only those relationships where we receive reciprocation and know that our love is well received. That passage doesn't say that this love is only between husband and wife, or brother and sister; this passage is about love in general, pure and simple. The words used are the very words of passion and romance: always trusts, never fails, does not boast.
What would our lives look like if we loved everyone passionately? If we were always thinking of others first? In my mind, the notion of romance has to do with letting someone know that you're thinking about them and that your life is better because they're a part of it. We've trivialized it to the point that it is used as a weapon to woo someone with the hopes of getting some physical response, but I submit that Christ loved everyone he came into contact with as passionately as the next person. Romance takes risks and exposes one person to another because the romantic one wants so much just to make the other happy. But it's conditional - if I don't get the response I want, well...I'll just stop making those overtures because they're not reciprocated. But nowhere in the Bible does it say "only love them if they return that love".
I am now at an impasse - the solitude and rest which I so desperately seek requires that I have unconditional love and that I love everyone as passionately as I can no matter if they're someone I'm physically attracted to, someone charismatic, someone down on their luck or someone who doesn't live up to any single standard which I hold. I am incapable of that love, and I don't think that I will ever be capable of that love while I am here on this earth because the entire world system is one that puts conditions on love. So, how does one gain that romantic, passionate, unconditional love for every other person on this planet that is talked about in the Bible and also learn to love a God who is the very embodiment of that and yet does not show it in a way that this mortal plane can understand and latch on to? How does a person trapped in a world of conditional love even begin to understand the unconditional love, let alone attempt to act it out and give it to others?
Now, I know that several of you have been eagerly awaiting the end of this post to start writing your thesis comments (if you haven't started already) and divulge all those little theological nuggets and expository hooplah that you're just itching to tell. However, I don't really want those comments. What I want to hear from you, my faithful peanut gallery, is how you are coming to grips with and implementing a romantic notion of unconditional agape love. I'm not really interested in what Great Theologian X has to say - I want to hear feet-on-the-street, real-world, I've-spent-too-may-sleepless-nights-thinking-about-this answers.
There....now you may start the comment flood.
"how does one 'cut your losses' with eros but also continue to love that person unconditionally and passionately in an agape sense when the intimacy was spurned?"
I would like to start off by saying how you serve the Lord in your relationship with Him; will be reflected in how you serve others in your relationship with them. I am not talking about serving God by playing music, leading a small group, reading your Bible, praying, etc. I'm talking about serving others. Meeting their tangible needs just because they have a tangible need (see my posts on "Out of Our Abundance", "The Model of Serving", "Serving the Lord is a Loss of Life", and "Measure of Spiritual Growth"). It's funny how agape is a hard concept to grasp. Because if you really think about it, can we say that we have ever seen a true example of agape in our time? (Mother Theresa is truly the first person that comes to my mind).
So to answer your question I have above. Agape in a relationship is honesty and serving the other selflessly. By being honest with that person, as problems arise, you are committing to deal with those problems openly. My new favorite phrase is, "The truth hurts sometimes, but your commitment to each other should be to work through the hurt." This is healthy conflict resolution. The number one problem in relationships (and where agape totally comes into play) is conflict resolution. Our society, in relational conflicts, tries to resolve it by changing the other person; but through agape; the resolution to conflicts is to try and change yourself. When they can't change the other person, is where they start looking for another person who will fit their mold. Conflict resolution in our society doesn't deal with the core issue; but rather focuses on conformation.
Healthy conflict resolution, in a funny way, actually strengthens your relationship. Something that has we apply in our marriage is this:
I do something that annoys the poo out of my wife (I know that it surprises you that I can annoy the poo out of anyone, but I can). She prays about it. She prays for the Lord to help her perspective, and at the same time, prays for courage to bring it to my attention in His love. She then tells me what is going on. Our next step is to pray together about the situation (sometimes she has to remind me, and sometimes I have to remind her). It helps me not to be reactive to what was said. We then talk about the issue, and why it bothered her, how I perceived my action (or what I was thinking as I did said action), and I gain a healthy perspective of she views that action and my response then is "How can I serve her better in this?" I then become more conscientous about this; and do my best to serve her in that area, meeting her emotional need.
So how can you apply that to a dating/courting relationship? I can't give an example of breaking up with someone in "agape" because to be quite frank I have never done so. Do I regret that? Yes. So how would I do that now? Just like the above example. If I saw something that annoyed me, or bothered me; I'd pray about it. Then I would present it to her, and pray with her about it. Then try and resolve it. If it couldn't be resolved, I'd end it.
You see, if you are unwilling to serve the Lord this way; you are not going to serve others in the same manner. We are so bent on trying make the Lord's will fit our lives; instead of making our lives fit the Lord's will. It is a submissive issue. To be even more honest, when we think in terms of "submission" in our society today (someone who yields their rights to serve another person), in a biblical marriage this falls on the Husband, not the wife. The word "submit" in Ephesians 5 in relation to the wife means, "To come alongside of and help" and paints a similar picture to how Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as being a comforter (John 14:16-18, emphasis on verse 18). But the phrase given to the Husband is to love your wife as Christ loves the church, insomuch that He gave Himself for her. The phrase "gave Himself for her" paints the picture of submission that we view in our society today (again, yielding our rights to serve someone else). It's hard to explain, but when you are truly honest and serving the other person selflessly with agape; it's hard to spurn intimacy.
So would you say that there's a difference between passion and romance? If so, what would that be? In thinking about this topic, a thought that came to me was that maybe if all of our love was passionate regardless of the desired end-result expectations then maybe it wouldn't be so difficult to move into and out of the different types of love. Maybe that would make being "just friends" more of a reality and not so much of a stigma.
Yes, I believe there is a difference. This may be right or wrong, just my opinion of how I view it. So if you disagree with me, I'd like to know your view, and get a different perspective to balance. So here is my view on the difference of passion and romance.
I believe passion is more self-driven. For instance, the phrase "What are you passionate about?" Passion stems from your likes and dislikes. I think it is more like infatuation. If you go with your passion, the attitude of doing something/or serving in a capacity you don't really like is going to be difficult to get into a good, humble attitude of serving. The whole time you will be thinking, "Why am I here doing this? I don't even like this person, or this area of ministry!" This is why a lot of people don't serve in various ministries in the church (again as a whole not just our building), because the church is always telling them to serve in the areas where they are passionate about. But when the Lord tries to get them out of their comfort zone, they don't want to move. I will tell you this much, if I served by my passion, I would not do FAITH. I am not saying FAITH is a bad thing, because it has been fantastic for me to go through, but I'm not passionate about it. (On a side note, I don't call FAITH "evangelism". If you read the "Great Commission", the emphasis is on making disciples, and we are called to go as part of making disciples. So evangelism is the combined action of going with the intent of making disciples. The reason I like FAITH is because it gave me a tool to use to "Go", and puts me in a situation that I normally don't go seeking to do. Just my thought).
So romancing someone in a relationship is all about pleasing them. This is why romance in a marriage is so important. So in romance, for us guys, we should be opening doors for them, holding hands, massaging shoulders/back, foot rubs, cooking, dishes, watching the kids in the evening, etc. But the idea behind romance is selflessly serving them; or as you put it "love...regardless of the desired end-result..." I think when we make ourselves available to the Lord to be used in a capacity we are not comfortable in (my example of FAITH), we are romancing the Lord. The thing I hang my hat on in serving in an area I'm not comfortable in is this: "God will supply my need to serve Him in this capacity. All He desires is my willingness." So if I'm willing to serve Him with an attitude of pleasing Him, regardless if I'm "passionate" about this area or not; He will use me through the Holy Spirit, and give me the boldness to do so. That is how we romance the Lord. I believe this is what Isaiah 6:1-13 paints a picture of.
So for your example, if we loved people through the action of romance, not passion, then the result would lead you into the different types of love that go beyond the sense of "just being friends", and builds a foundation for marriage.
Now when you apply this to serving others for the Lord; the focus of your romance shouldn't be on the other person. The focus of your romance should be on the Lord. Again, if you go back to Isaiah 6, Isaiah romances the Lord with his willingness to be used and go. Where does the Lord want Him to go? What is the desire of the Lord? His people. He wants Isaiah to go back and serve the people with His message. It is the same for us. When we show our willingness to serve the Lord, and romance Him, He is going to bring people in our lives to serve, which is why Jesus says what He says in Matthew 25:32-40. That is my thought, and how I view the difference between romance and passion.
Thanks for your comments...something to think about it. It's not really what I was jonesin' for, though. Anybody else out there have something to say on this subject, maybe in a screenfull or less? Something that maybe fits a little better with the last full paragraph of the post?
You know, it seems that you are wanting a "Step-by-step" answer of how to live out the Christian life. Guess what? There isn't one! People can only point to you how to get into a position to be used by the Holy Spirit; we can't do the Holy Spirit's job and tell YOU how to live!
I've given you some good examples of my life, and how I have applied what you've asked; and that is truly all any one person can give you.
The only thing that we can do is simply say "Submit to the Lord, and let him lead you on how to apply it." You may not like it, and you can kick and scream about how "that's not the answer I want to hear," but it doesn't change the fact that WE cannot tell you how to live your life for Christ.
You will know how He's leading you. I can't explain how you will know, but you will know. When I walked away from the record deal in college, I knew I was doing what the Lord wanted me to do. How? I had dreams about it, other people (including band mates) knew and were telling me, close family and friends were telling me, etc. I knew! Is He going to tell you in the same way? No! That is something YOU and YOU ALONE are going to have to figure out.
You're missing the point and the intent of my posting. I'm not looking for an answer to these questions or a 'how-to' on how to do things. You are right when you said that things will be different for me than they are for anybody else. I know this.
What I want to do first and foremost is present the concepts that I'm thinking about in an effort to spur discussion about what real people are doing with the the things they're hearing. I'm not asking anyone to tell me what the answer is to my questions; I want to hear how they're answering them for themselves in practical day-to-day situations. I want to hear about the journey that people are making and the questions that they have. Ideally, some of the ideas that I mention in my posts would cause others to think about things in a different light (even if they disagree) which would spawn other lines of discussion. Those are the things I'm interested in hearing.
Posts such as this are designed to elicit the shared experience of working through heavy ideas together and maybe leaving some questions unanswered, but also confirming that hey, other people are working through this same stuff as well and commiserating the journey by talking about where we are. Encouragement is gained by hearing those things and knowledge and strength are gained by thinking about someone else's ideas and questions. Perhaps it's the phrasing or the delivery, but when I read responses like the ones above I hear another sermon about how I should do things or what I should "just" do and I'm saying that I know these things; what I want to hear about is what others think about the ideas presented in relation to their own lives - something like, "that idea is interesting to me, but I've come to my own conclusion that passion and romance aren't the same thing because when I'm called to serve somewhere that is not my passion, I won't do it because it's not 'fun'". Or maybe something like, "Hmmm..romance in agape. Well, that's hard for me to think about because I'm not sure that romance can really be anywhere but tied to eros. An idea like 'passion' fits a lot more neatly into what I would perceive your idea to be."
To maybe restate this, I am more interested in people's grasp of the application of the idea of passionate agape love rather than a 'how-to' answer in a sermon-like form, hence why I stated that I was not looking for theological or "thou shalt do" sorts of answers but rather individual applications of some or all of the concepts I've presented or new trains of thought spawned by thinking about something in the post. Many of the questions in my posts are rhetorical, being posed simply to let the readers know what I'm thinking and (hopefully) also to give them something to chew on in their own meditation time. I mean, seriously - thinking about romance in relation to agape love has gotten me more than one or two raised eyebrows when I've posed it conversation, but it's led to some really great discussion. And I still don't have an answer. :)
Maybe I'm not making myself clear, and maybe this is just one area that I won't effectively be able to communicate to anyone outside my own headspace. If that's the case, well...I'm sorry to be confusing. Hopefully the next one won't be so ambiguous, but I really don't think it's that hard to fathom. Don't necessarily try to answer my questions for me; answer them for yourself.
So then explain the phrase, "It's not really what I was jonesin' for, though" to the examples I gave of how I'm applying this in my life? That is where I'm getting confused on this, and why I felt you were wanting people to give you the play-by-play breakdown.