To Love like a Child

by Evangelynn

                                       

This summer, I was blessed with the opportunity to go on a mission trip to Jamaica as well as visit an orphanage in Malaysia and it was there that I learned what it means to love like a child. You see, when little kids whom you barely know run up to you, hug you, kiss you, and tell you they love you, you know that that comes from a rare place of pure love. And the funny thing about children is they love without conditions. It doesn’t matter who you are, how long you’ve known them, or if you will even love them back. They just love. They don’t care about what you’ve done or what you could do. They simply aren’t afraid to love. Unfortunately, as people grow older, hurt and experience changes that once unconditional love into conditional love.

At 19 years old, I haven’t gone through “a lot of hurt” per se, but I have gone through enough to learn how to build up walls. Growing up, I found myself facing disappointment after disappointment, and before I knew it, I had evolved from a fearless, loving person into a fearful, protective person. I built up walls around myself to protect myself from “loving too much” because I figured that if I love less, it will hurt less when they reject me. I became comfortable inside those walls because inside those walls there was no danger or hurt…or so I thought. But a wall is a wall. Walls block out the bad, but they also block out the good; they block out the hurt, but they also block out the love. But I was not willing to take the risk, so over the years, I would let people into my life, but only to a certain degree. Once I felt myself getting too close to the walls, I would step back. This, I thought, was protection.

“Don’t love too much. Don’t show your emotions and don’t let them see your feelings. Don’t grow so attached to people, because if you let them too far into your life, all they’re going to do is give you false hope. After all, everyone eventually lets you down anyways. You don’t need the hurt of being rejected again, so back up and close up.” These are things that I would tell myself, and to be perfectly honest, I often find myself still telling myself these lies. And then I ask myself why I tell myself these things. Does it really protect me? Perhaps, perhaps not. But why risk it, right? Wrong.

Love is a risk. But it’s only a risk because we have put conditions on our love. We have put selfish, conditional terms on love and made love into a math equation that says if we put X amount of love into a relationship, we must get X amount of love in return. We calculate, weigh, and analyze the inputs and results of love until we abort the entire equation all together. But here’s the news… LOVE IS NOT A MATH EQUATION. Nothing says that if we put X amount of love into a relationship, we will get X amount back. Sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t. It’s a 50-50 chance – that’s an EQUAL chance on both sides – so why do we let the 50 % chance of failure, and not the 50 % chance of success, dictate us? Maybe because love is a risk we are not willing to take. But can you imagine if love was a risk that Jesus was not willing to take? If love was a risk that Jesus was not willing to take, humanity as we know it would never have been the same. Jesus loved without conditions and without fear even though He had all the reasons to. He went through more hurt, humiliation, and disappointment than any of us will ever go through, but He still chose to take the risk and love. And because He made that decision, the world received a second chance. He gave up His life in love in order to give us a chance to love, yet we take it for granted and instead… choose safety over love? Don’t play it safe. Jesus never did. God loves without conditions or terms. And thankfully He does because the bottom line is that we will NEVER love God enough to be worthy of His love. We have all hurt God, abused His love, and given Him all the reasons to give up on us, yet He still loves us, and very much for that matter. That’s UNconditional love.

1 John 4:18 says,
“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

I can not give you a step by step explanation on how to love without fear or how to tear down the walls because quite frankly, I am still struggling to figure it out. All I know is that we are made perfect in love so there should be no fear in love. We were made TO love BY Love OUT of love. And it is WHEN you love, AS you love, that you drive out the fear. Pause. I don’t think you get it. It’s AS you love, not BEFORE you love, that the fear is driven out. So don’t wait till fear leaves before you love. Because if you do, it’ll never happen. Love first; and THEN the fear will leave. That’s how to love like a child. That’s how to love like Jesus. And at the end of the day, yes you will continue to face hurt and disappointment, but that is NOT a result of love. It is a result of the er and sin of human beings. There is a difference between loving people and putting your hope in people. Putting your hope in people will disappoint you, but loving people will not. The only one whom you CAN put your hope in and who will NEVER fail you is Jesus and that’s all you’ll ever need. So do not fear love, but use love to fight fear, and return to loving like a child.