It's my duty to love

Yesterday was Father’s Day. But in our household, it looked more like a Mother’s Day. My mom hurt her back the previous day and was in a lot of discomfort last night. In the evening time after dinner, I saw my dad sitting by my mom’s side, tending to her back and trying to help her feel better. After an hour or so, feeling much better with my dad’s care, my mom thanked my dad. In response, he chuckled and said, “It’s my duty.” And he looked at me and explained how in this situation, he wouldn’t say “it’s my pleasure” (my dad's favorite English phrase) because it’s not his pleasure that my mom is in pain, and it’s not his pleasure to have to tend to my mom’s back for an hour, but that he does it simply because it’s his duty to do so as a husband.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about how emotionally messy relationships are, and I’ve been wresting with this idea of what love is… and what my dad said about his act of love being his duty really brought a lot of my thoughts into a conclusion.

For the past few days, I’ve been thinking about how love is a choice, and marriage is a commitment to this choice. I, to be honest, am someone who is easily swayed by emotions. When it comes to romance and love, many of us, like myself, may make decisions purely based on feelings. For example, “I feel so happy and I can’t stop smiling when I think about him/her,” may lead us to think we are in love with this person, while “I feel so bored when I am with him/her,” may lead us to feel certain that we don’t like this person.

While feelings are, in many cases, a good guidance in making decisions, associating love purely with emotions is dangerous because our emotions are constantly yo-yoing up and down. Let’s say you are dating someone, and when you are with this person, you feel that warm, fuzzy euphoric feeling that you associate it to be love forever. But then after years of being together with this person, let's say this feeling all of sudden stops. Then you might start thinking you don’t love this person anymore so you break it off with this person out of the blue. Same thing with our relationship with God. During a season when you feel like you are getting crazy revelations every single day and you feel so fired up for Christ, it can be easy to declare your love for God.  But then when you go through a dry season and you feel nothing in time of worship and prayer, you might be tempted to think that God doesn’t love you any more. In some cases, because you don’t feel any emotional love for or from God, you might even conclude that you can’t love God anymore, so you just give up on your faith all together.

But love is not just a feeling, it’s an action. In 1 Corinthians 13, it says that love is not selfish. But associating love with feelings is highly selfish. “I love this person because this person makes me feel happy. I like this warm fuzzy feeling I get when I am with this person” “I love this person because this person makes me feel good about myself. I like this feeling of being affirmed in how attractive and lovable I am.” These feelings we often associate love with are just self-satisfying, self-exulting feelings, and if love is not selfish, these feelings can’t be love. Perhaps these feelings can indicate attraction and interest, but not necessarily love. (and this is off topic, but I believe the same reason applies to why hooking up with a stranger at a club or watching porn and masturbating is not love.)

Then what is love?

I believe love is a choice and a commitment to act in love toward one another through thick and thin, rather than just a feeling.

When my dad was taking care of my mom when she hurt her back, it wasn’t because it was "his pleasure", but it was because he saw it as "his duty" to care for her when she’s not feeling well. It was an act of commitment. Love is not just a feeling, but an action and a commitment to one another.

When Jesus died for us on the cross, we know that it’s because of his love for us. But when he was nailed on the cross, I don’t think it was because he felt warm and fuzzy emotions thinking about us as He died. I don't think Jesus sacrificed himself for us because he felt like dying on the cross, but because he made a choice and a commitment to lay himself down for us so that we can live in faith through him. That made it love.

So moving forward, I hope I can make wiser decisions in regards to love, not purely out of my impulsive emotions, but one that involves a commitment to be loving to a person regardless of whether I feel like it or not at the moment. (And I’m not just talking about romantic love, but also, to act in love toward God with this commitment and to act in love to those around me with this commitment). This would require much sacrifices, but that’s what I have concluded love is. It’s a decision to commit to the act of sacrificial love toward someone regardless of whether we feel like it or not at the moment.

I know this is not going to be easy, but just as Christ has loved me, it’s my duty to love.