Love is Spelled R-I-S-K

No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

I struggle with anxiety. I know this condition is pretty rare in modern times. Science has shown people are pretty secure in their personality and appearance, have well paying jobs with great benefits and 40 hour work-weeks that stay at the office, and are frequently going on exotic, expensive-except-with-insider knowledge vacations with their beautiful, perfect soulmates.

Anyway, I struggle with anxiety. And I know many of us do. What has struck me lately is how often my anxiety is built on not only improbable what-ifs, but also a perspective of negativity and nihilism. Even if I was the most jolly type 7 on the Enneagram, it seems the world is all but doomed.

Because 45 is crazy and asking Ukraine to get dirt on Biden while also ignoring the climate crisis and belittling someone with a medical condition for sport, or because the social fabric of the United States is polluted by the alt-left and their godless, tree-loving agendas to let anyone have sex with whoever they want and claiming that racism isn’t dead.

I am sure I lost some of you there, but they are both caricatures. And are my silly and incomplete attempts to point out that, regardless of where you are politically or socio-economically or racially or whatever it might be, we are all running off of fear.

Fear of the other, fear of the future, fear of dozens of what-ifs. Some of this fear is legitimate. I myself will admit I land more on the left and have more concern about the climate crisis than two adults having sex with each other.

But the existence of fear that I have is just like the fear of the right-leaning person I disagree with a lot and it is just like the fear of the left-leaning person I do agree with a lot.

Not to get too conspiracy theorist here, but we are definitely living in a time where our data is being throughly tracked. What we do on our phones, our Netflix subscriptions, our YouTube history, and the Instagram accounts we secretly stalk is being sold to the highest bidder. Through our various screens, we are being hounded for the attention of outside and I’d argue nearly malevolent forces. Whether it be via cortisol in an attempt to increase our stress, and then make us outraged (to loop and then infinitely repeat), or whether it be via dopamine, to keep us dependent on the high of seeing a red bubble with a number inside of it, our society is seemingly being reshaped by a complete redefinition of fun, success, and anger/outrage.

Am I the only one who thinks it is killing us?

Whether we keep running onto Twitter to get pissed off about the latest stunt of our political or cultural enemies, or if we are watching hours of that dark and depressing latest Netflix miniseries, we are being conditioned to live in a loop of overwhelming stress and perpetual entertainment.

The entertainment causes us to fall behind on our daily life stuff, so we go on Facebook or Twitter or Reddit to do something about what is happening in the world by scrolling through and proving the enemy wrong, or we go on Facebook or Twitter or Reddit to scroll through and prove the enemy is wrong with little success, and so run to the screens to distract us from the stress. And then fall behind on life stuff.

We are distracting ourselves into stress, and we are stressing ourselves out into distraction.

The simple, trite, Jesus-y answer? Well, we should just love one another.

And if it was that simple, then bam, world peace, everyone gets along, and we can thrive in a Utopian state.

Alas, and unfortunately, it does not work that way.

A lot of times when we try and be loving it does not work out. Whether it is in relationship, with colleagues, with family, with friends, Hell, even with enemies.

There are plenty of accounts where love seems to fail. In fact, even our own modern perspective of love, whether it be romantic love, friend love, familial love, or enemy love, are all being attacked. How many Oscar-winning or nominated movies on love are optimistic? How many are pessimistic?

Few and far between are accounts of genuine but messy romantic love, annoying but enduring loving friendships, and swallowing-of-pride, compromising love between enemies.

Love is incompatible with a world built on stress and distraction. Love supersedes difference and opinion. Love demands far more than we could ever imagine.

Love is spelled R-I-S-K.

Months and months ago, a pastor at my church spoke about the concept of faith being spelled R-I-S-K. I am kinda stealing his idea and reframing it.

The foundation of the Christian faith is love. No one can really argue this. Not the unitarian, all-is-good let’s embrace any and all Christian sects to the most ardent, TULIP-adhering reformed folks. Both groups on those opposing sides, and everyone in between, all agree, at least somewhat, that the cornerstone of the Christian religion is God revealing His love for mankind by sending His Son Jesus to live, die, rise, and teach us a life dominated by love.

Love God with all of who you are and love your neighbor as yourself. All of the law and the prophets hang on this.

All of life is meaningless, depressing, wasteful, and bleak if we don’t have love.

So why are we so afraid of it?

Precisely because it is so wonderful. For fear of losing it or gaining it or gaining it and then losing it, we run to everything except love.

We run to success, we run to fun, we run to stress, we run to distraction. These things are all fleeting, all “seemingly reliable,” and all give us the temporary relief that we think we want and need.

Love is what we need. But what we need is far deeper and far scarier than anything else. This is why heartbreak from failed love is so devastating.

Because what we all long for, what we all need, in the deepest of the deep, is to be loved exactly for who we are. So when we are, “seemingly,” rejected and not loved by someone we do love, it is the most egregious offense to us.

So if it is so hard and potentially a cause for such pain to love, why push forward, why strive to do that which is counter to all of our self-preserving motives?

Because to love is to live. Because we were not made to live life for ourselves. We were made to live for others.

One of my favorite writers, Thomas Merton, puts it like this. Can’t really top it.

“Love is our true destiny. We do not find meaning of life by ourselves alone — we find it with another.”

This call is incredibly daunting. I keep rereading this, thinking about how often I have feared love, hated love, and rejected love.

Yet when I reflect on that, and think about the darkest times of my life, it was when I most directly and stubbornly rejected love. Love from God, and love from others. Often those thing are synonymous with each other.

But the happiest? The most joyful? The meaningful? The greatest, purest, and most “I am so glad I am alive” moments of my life? When I embraced love. When I gave love. When I watched the love I give change the lives of those around me.

This is the kingdom of heaven’s life source. This is the answer to every problem of evil.

As sentimental and unrealistic as it may sound, if I am to believe the Bible, if I am to believe in God, if I am to believe in the Good News preached by the most good person to ever walk the earth, then what am I to believe is the answer to what is the most important thing in life?

Love is the answer. Love defined as Abba, Love defined as the Trinity, Love defined as that which was from the beginning and will be to the end of the ages, Love defined as the Lamb that was slain for the sins of the world.

It is not easy to trust in this love when our entire world is built on the premise of proving to each of us that we aren’t worthy of love. And yet, Love has a name and is calling us by name.

What will you risk for? Better yet, who will you risk for?

What will you love for? Better yet, who will you love for?

Today, I am loving, I am risking, for the sake of Christ. It then follows that I am loving, I am risking, for all those around me. This is the command of Christ.

I don’t know what tomorrow will bring but I hope that I risk, I hope that I love for the sake of Christ and those around me.

I hope the rest of my days are defined by this risk. Nothing else is as good of a thing to risk for.

I hope you can help me with this risk and with this love. God knows I need it.