Tough love or true love?
We often hear about how angry and cruel public discussion has become today. But we often hear excuses for our bad manners. One excuse is to claim that, far from being rude, we are only showing “tough love.” Much cruelty is justified by those two words. My speech may have the delicacy of a chainsaw doing brain surgery, but I can always justify the damage with the claim that this is what “tough love” looks like. “I wouldn’t say this if I didn’t love you.” “If you would just agree with me your life would be better.”
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Another phrase we use to justify cruelty is, “the truth hurts.” It’s not that I am a spiteful person. My words hurt because you so desperately cling to your delusions. The pain you blame on me is just the pain of lies leaving your mind. Once the scalpel of my “tell it like it is” surgery on you is finished, you will be rid of the tumour of your stupidity. And so on.
Of course, there is a kernel of truth in these justifications. Tough love is a real thing. I’m a professor who must grade papers, fair and foul. A parent confiscating a teen’s phone will hear the wail of “you never loved me!” And the truth does hurt sometimes. I’ve had to hear it, for my own good.
So how can we know when these phrases have become excuses for just being mean? I suggest that genuine love always seeks to achieve loving. Love angles this way and that, seeking to be known and felt as love, even in a difficult conversation. I may say I intended my words as love, but intent alone does not make love. A good question to ask others around me is, “Did I come across as loving?”
Loving is like leadership: I am not a leader if people don’t respond and follow. Love is like teaching: I am not a teacher if no one is learning. Love is like feeding the poor: I am not a feeder of the poor unless the poor are eating and being filled. We can all think of exceptions to this, but love is like that: if I truly love, the other person will feel beloved.
God is love. But for God, love had to be the achievement of loving. God was not content to only declare that he loved us and then hope we took it well. No, his love demanded he do everything possible to convince hardened sinners that they are beloved. God living among us even to his death on the cross is God seeking to be understood as loving (1 John 4:9). God embraced even the cross to achieve loving, so that we would respond as people loved.
And so, before using those old excuses, ask yourself: Do I come across as loving? Are people around me responding like beloved people? When I speak with those who might be my opponents across the aisle, do they seem to warm up to me and come alive in our conversation? Do they tell others that despite our disagreement, they feel respected and honored by me? Is any reconciliation in fact happening through my conversations? When I have talked to someone, do I sense an emotional connection between us now? Would they? Are misunderstandings really being clarified and people truly being strengthened and encouraged?
Am I achieving love?
