Some people think that love is for emergencies. Someone who loves us will be there when we need him. While this is true, it misses the true point of love: To love and be loved is the source of all joy.
While love may, at times, be more “one-way” than two-way, at its best love is mutual giving and receiving, a two-way sharing of being. To love someone is to give of yourself to them. But it is also to be open to what they have to give to you.
Jesus tells us that it is more blessed to give than to receive. This is because if you are able to give, it means you are rich. Only a rich person can give; a poor person is trapped by a sense of scarcity. Actually it is better to look at this from a reverse perspective: someone who can give is rich, no matter how much they possess. Someone who cannot give is poor.
In a love relationship both sides are blessed, because both are able to give and receive. Each person gives in love; the other person acknowledges the worth of what is given by receiving it.
The traditional courtship process is a good example of this. A man will ask a woman for the privilege of taking her to a restaurant and spending his money on her. By saying yes, she affirms his worth. She also gives of herself — her time and attention. He affirms the worth of what she gives by his admiration and respect. At best, both sides are full of joy during the whole process.
Real love requires openness. Both sides must be willing to be known. People who are not willing to “let someone in” will never experience the depths of love. At the same time, people who are not willing to spend the effort to know another person will also remain in the shallows of love.
One of the biggest barriers to love is the way we build fantasy images of people in our minds. Instead of receiving what a person is, we take what pleases us and reject what we don’t like. As a result we build up an image of the other person that is missing elements of reality. This is why unconditional acceptance is important: without it we cannot really know who we are dealing with.
Of course “we love because He first loved us.” Our ability to love is derived from the unconditional love that God pours out toward us. God does not love half-heartedly; “he does not give his Spirit by measure.” You who have the gift of the Holy Spirit have all there is of God whether or not you realize it. “The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5). And that very Spirit is the one who wells up as a river of living water flowing from that place that otherwise is empty in so many people (see John 7:37-39).
Ironically even with God we have a false image in our minds. C. S. Lewis tells us to pray to God “not as we think him, but as he is.” He compares us to archers with poor aim, shooting our prayers in every direction, and he asks that God will magnetically attract our poorly aimed prayers to Him.
The great thing about God is that the better we know Him the better we like it. We are told that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). But we are also told that “perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).
The process of knowing God is like the process of knowing anyone. We let go of our preconceptions and stereotypes and allow the unique person that confronts us to filter into our minds and hearts. We are open both to give and to receive — both to know and be known. That is the place that God wants to take us — the oneness that breaks through our loneliness without submerging us. Jesus prays that we would be one with Him and with one another, just as He is one with the Father.