Tuesday 4 July 2017

Can You Love Too much?


I saved a quote on Pinterst a while ago and found it again tonight. It got me thinking about what limits we put on love and if that is a good thing.

"Loving too much always kills you. It rips you apart and messes up your mind. It leaves you wide awake at 3 in the morning wishing you never had any feelings."


I know I've been talking about love a lot recently, but I do think that it is important. Michelle Strydom (she's put together a lot of fascinating research on sickness and healing) says that the majority of diseases come from a breakdown in relationship between yourself and God, yourself and others, or yourself and yourself (such as low self-image). And if so much can be linked back to relationships, a lot can be linked back to love, as with most relationships, there is some foundation of love, whether it be platonic towards friends (phileos), with God our father, with our family, or with people that we barely know. 

Loving people that we barely know or that are complete strangers is tricky, but God does tell us to love them, and I think it is a lot easier when it does pour out of that love, and that we see them the way that He sees them (loved and perfectly created), or when we realise that all we do for those that can't do anything for us, we are doing of Jesus. (Matthew 25:40)

This post is about loving too much though. So first off, do you think that you can love too much? Why or why not?

Let's consider some reasons why it could be a bad thing. 

It can make friendships complicated

If you're friends with someone of the opposite gender, there is the possibility of things getting more complicated than you anticipated. I don't think this is an issue of loving too much though, but more what sort of love and thoughts are there. For example, I have some guy friends that I love a lot, but I've never started being attracted to them because of that, or because I do things to show that I love them (such as mailing a letter cause they live far away, or making them a birthday present, or sending a message just to say I'm thinking of them). 

So then what causes it if it's not too much love? I'm not sure. Maybe it's getting too intimate, maybe it's just that there is attraction, but I don't think it's too much love, because you get different types of love and I think it is possible to love someone completely without there being any romantic attachments. 

Read more about the different loves here (when this post is written in the future cause the topic is pretty interesting)

It hurts

Aaaahhhh (anguished cry). I think this is potentially the worst part of loving people. They can let you down, disappoint you, or things can just happen that hurt you, and those things would not have been able to hurt you if there was not some love there. 

When people move away

When you lose a friendship, or a piece of a friendship

When your friend is hurting and it hurts you

When your friend does something that you wish you could have stopped them from doing

These some  things that make friendships, and any relationship, hard. 

There are so many nights that I've lain in bed unable to sleep and had an ache in my chest from one of those things. I absolutely love people, but the things like this make it hard, make me wish that I could care less and not have such deep feelings. They say that emotional pain can hurt as much as physical pain and I think that's pretty close. Knowing that someone else is hurting and not being able to fix it is horrible. 

The awesome thing is that we do know a God that can fix all these things or work for good through them. That hope is awesome.

The positives of loving too much? I'm glad you asked.

We are more moved to help others

If there were no love and no empathy in this world, we'd be in a pretty dire place. There would be a lot less cruelty if there were more love. There would be less people in bad situations if people acted less selfishly. 

Displays the character of Christ

Jesus loved people that were not easy to love. He loved people so much that he left His home in heaven. How many people do you know that would actually leave things that they loved and that were comfortable in order to help others? How many times do we simply say that we're too tired to help someone that needs it? There were times that Jesus withdrew and prayed and rested, and times when, even though he tried to get away (for example because he had received news that John the Baptist had been beheaded), but people came he went to them and healed them. 

The world needs more love
There are a lot of people hurting. Whether it is children whose parents have divorced and they're confused about love, an orphan that is alone, refugees from war torn countries, someone needing encouragement, or a friend having a bad day. God has placed us here to be His hands and feet He and has told us to love others. 

So can we love too much? I don't think so. Maybe it's how we handle that love that makes the difference. If you're always getting hurt by friends disappointing you, maybe you need to remember that our joy should come from Jesus and when we're satisfied with Him others can't hurt and disappoint us as easily. If you're disappointed by the way that people close to you are acting because it is destructive, perhaps a reminder of how great God is and how these things can just be sorted out is helpful. Praying for them helps a lot. I think we often forget about how powerful prayer can be.

Have a great day and find a way to show someone that love that we have been given
Shendz