Love is Violence

If you have ever loved someone, you know this: Love Hurts.

With love, you can hurt someone or be hurt by someone. It may be a word, an action, an inaction, or a even a thought that does the violence, but a violence is nonetheless done. Just this past weekend, at a family gathering, I snapped a picture of our six year old. As I looked at the picture in the view finder, I made an audible grown. For the face I had captured was not the cute little six year old, but a face that seemed a good fifteen years older. That little face brought a flood of feelings and anticipations: the first time she'll not want us to walk all the way to the door of school, the first boy, the first date, college departure; having to let her go a little at each juncture. In that picture, I loved her so much, and was so injured in my heart because of it.

When we love, there is a violence inside of us, a passion that more than turns our heart, it tears it. This emotional hurt doesn't just come from bad things, but good as well. Seeing one we love succeed swells our heart to a breaking point, watching them find their own way makes our heart break at the thought that when they find it, they won't need us as much.

And there is the thing: when we watch those we love grow as people, we are not just seeing them go through difficulties and victories- we are sharing in them. Our hearts hurt because they are attached to those we love, and the pulling and tugging that goes on as our connection is stressed and strained and relaxed and back to stressed is a violence. I believe its why we have such a hard time loving a lot of people, it just hurts us too much.

Now imagine how God feels.

We have a very small, relatively, number of people we are called to love. God loves every being who has ever lived- and even those who have yet to live. Each heartbreak they experience, each swelling hope they find, He feels it. He smiles at their happiness and when the gravity of emotion swings the other way, His heart breaks in their sorrow.

His love is an active love, more so than any of our love. He has taking great action to show us His love, and to make His love available to us. He has gone to war for His beloved, His chosen. He spent much of the Old Testament fighting literal wars for the hearts of the Israelites. He has waged a spiritual war from the beginning for the souls of Mankind. His violent love reached a peak when, out of His love for us and for His own holiness, He killed His own Son. Make no mistake, God SENT Jesus to die. And I believe Jesus knew it was out of love that He sent him to die. Love for us. Love for His Son. Love for all of Creation.

God is love. John says this in 1 John. If we know that love hurts, what must the existence of God, who is love, be like? If God is love, He cannot be some fat, lazy, inactive God who merely observes the plight of His beloved. Would you sit idly by while your beloved went to their death, or would you rise up to fight for them? God is moved by love, and there are times His movements are violent. There are times that His love for us moves Him to violently shake our lives to wake us up. There are times He must violently defend our honor, or even violently rebuke us. In it all, I believe God suffers with us in our trials.

He truly feels our pain.

And because He loves, He endures.

And if we love Him, then we too must endure. When He doesn't make sense. When He doesn't seem to speak. When He doesn't seem to act. When He seems harsh. When He convicts and punishes us.

Because all of that is God working through the pain of His existence.

Because God is love.