Loving Fearlessly

Well, apparently the topic of love is more scandalous than I thought. I have received more personal messages and had more private conversations about this topic than anything else I have ever written about. My writing, combined with a couple of recent sermons have created quite the stir.

Interestingly, along with the fabulous conversation and intrigue, I have had a great deal of pushback. When discussing fierce and extravagant love, there is a huge “but” that eventually enters every conversation. “Yeah that was good for Jesus...BUT”. Or the inevitable, “But we are supposed to guard our hearts.”

No offense, but I don’t think we are supposed to be guarding our hearts from love. Love is the reason we exist. We are born from love into love, remember. And when Jesus was asked what was the most important thing, he said love. Of all the things he could have told us to focus on, of all the thousands of points from the law he could have pointed to, he chose love…love G-d and love others.

Undoubtedly the greatest bulk of pushback centers on the sacred “B” word - boundaries. Ok…I know this is going to upset a ton of people but I just don’t see it. I fully understand the need for boundaries in many scenarios where power has been abused. But, here I am referring to our routine practice of using boundaries as an excuse to hide our hearts in a way that stifles true and extravagant love.

Can someone...anyone…give me a clear example of Jesus boundaries in regards to love? I fear our boundaries are way more about us than about the other person. It is not that I disagree with the concept. I just think we go about willy-nilly demanding our space inside our boundaries that we have erected. Ultimately boundaries protect, they keep in, they keep out, and they stake a claim. I have no claims on my life. If my life is not my own, then any boundaries in my life must be drawn by my father. Remember, he draws them in perfect places (Ps 16:6).

I really do get it - the topic intrigues us and scares us at the same time. But foundationally, these objections are cloaked in fear. We are terrified of getting hurt and are cautious of giving too much, lest we be labeled codependent. We carefully construct our boundaries and give only enough to test the waters for reciprocity, finally giving out in tiny thimble-fulls in order not to lose too much if love isn’t returned.

Instead of extravagant...we are stingy.

The funny thing is that every person that has these big objections, also has a glimmer of desire for the very thing they are objecting to. I see a lurking hope that maybe, just maybe we can learn to love like Jesus. Maybe we can press through our fear and learn to love fiercely with abandon, and life-giving way.

I want to be fearless in my love and the love of the father through me...

Worth a try don’t you think?