What’s Love Got to Do With it?
I have heard the fight many times before. I have lived the fight before. It goes something like this:
“What is wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Something is wrong. What is it?”
“Well, I feel like I am the only one who does… (Name the activity or action).”
“Okay, I will do it now.”
“No I don’t want you to just do it.”
“What? I don’t understand. You wanted me to do this, I offered, and now you don’t want me to?”
“I want you to do it, but I want you to WANT to do it.”
Anyone even be there, witness, or have that conversation? When this situation arises usually it is because of something deeper. The offended party who wants help is actually asking us to be motivated by our desire to want to help them not because they asked us to. It is a small but important difference.
I don’t think anyone likes being told that they are being helped because the other person feels like they have to help to keep them happy. Or maybe a parent is comforting their child and the child responds, “You have to say that because you're my parent.”
Motive is a big thing and we know it. I buy my wife gifts because I want to show her that I love her. I help with my chores in the house because I love my family and I want to take care of them and the things I have been blessed with. Yes, if I don’t care for those things they will eventually break or become larger jobs, but my motivation is important.
LOVE is important! What’s love got to do with it? EVERYTHING!
We have all been to weddings and heard the verse. Love is. But just before that they say why we need love.
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 - If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Why we do what we do matters to God. This also matters to the people around us. Sometimes we need to force ourselves to do things, but we can shift our attitude and focus to do them because we love the people, we are doing them for not because we have to.
What in your own life can you shift your focus on to make it an act of love and not a duty?