Love Is Not The Same As Kindness

“There is kindness in Love: but Love and kindness are not coterminous, and when kindness (in the sense given above) is separated from the other elements of Love, it involves a certain fundamental indifference to its object, and even something like contempt of it. Kindness consents very readily to the removal of its object - we have all met people whose kindness to animals is constantly leading them to kill animals lest they should suffer. Kindness, merely as such, cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering.”

Lewis explained that kindness is merely interested in taking away the suffering of another.  Love on the other hand, is interested in the good of his beloved, even if that good should mean that the beloved suffer temporary pain.

How many times have we questioned God’s love for us because He did not appear to be kind?  In times of trial and darkness, when His kindness seems so far away, we all too easily doubt He ever loved us.  For how could He allow us to suffer so much if He really cares?

But God cares.  And more than being kind, He is Love itself, a Love that wills us to be just like Him, a Love that wants us to be strong, steadfast, sensitive to the needs of others, able to empathize with and help those who are in pain.

It’s Easy To Be Kind Without Sacrifice

Lewis further explained how man can so easily boast of kindness as though it is something that is difficult to do:

“The real trouble is that ‘kindness’ is a quality fatally easy to attribute to ourselves on quite inadequate grounds. Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment. Thus a man easily comes to console himself for all his other vices by a conviction that ‘his heart's in the right place’ and ‘he wouldn't hurt a fly’, though in fact he has never made the slightest sacrifice for a fellow creature.”

“Perhaps my harping on the word "kindness" has already aroused a protest in some readers' minds. Are we not really an increasingly cruel age? Perhaps we are: but I think we have become so in the attempt to reduce all virtues to kindness. For Plato rightly taught that virtue is one. You cannot be kind unless you have all the other virtues. If, being cowardly, conceited and slothful, you have never yet done a fellow creature great mischief, that is only because your neighbour's welfare has not yet happened to conflict with your safety, self approval, or ease.”

In the event of conflict between our neighbor’s welfare and our own interests, are we willing to make the necessary sacrifice for the good of the other?  If we truly love them, we will be able to do so, for love is not a disinterested act of philanthropy or random kindness towards those you don’t care deeply about.  Love is a consuming fire!

Intimacy Reveals True Love and Kindness

Why is it that there are people who seem to be so kind to others and yet so strict with those whom they love?  Aside from the possibility of hypocrisy, these people find it easier to be kind with others because they don’t care so much at all for them as much as they care for their own family and friends.  Lewis wrote:

“It is for people whom we care nothing about that we demand happiness on any terms: with our friends, our lovers, our children, we are exacting and would rather see them suffer much than be happy in contemptible and estranging modes. If God is Love, He is, by definition, something more than mere kindness. And it appears, from all the records, that though He has often rebuked us and condemned us, He has never regarded us with contempt. He has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most memorable sense.”

It is not that we should be unkind to our loved ones.  We just find it more difficult to do so because we feel a greater urge deep within us to seek for their good, not just to gain their pleasure or to see them happy at the moment.

“You asked for a loving God: you have one. The great spirit you so lightly invoked, the ‘lord of terrible aspect’, is present: not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, nor the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds, persistent as the artist's love for his work and despotic as a man's love for a dog, provident and venerable as a father's love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes.” – C.S. Lewis

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For example, one reason why we find it so hard to forget a previous relationship is that we can’t accept the fact that it could all just end that way and all our efforts, all our time, all our tears and suffering had just gone to waste.

God wastes nothing however, especially our tears. We don’t know the end yet, especially within the broad perspective of eternity.

The other person may not appreciate everything you have done for him now, but it is certain that you have made an impact in his life. That impact will play a part in the grander scheme of things.

You’ll never know how he shall one day remember everything that has been done for him, how he was loved. At present, he may really feel such a deep craving to be loved but fears so much to be abandoned such that he consequently pushes away those who desire to love him.

But if you were able to show that person that you have been there for him at one point in his life, one day, God may let him see all the blessings sent his way, including the people who loved him even though his heart was still closed and unable to receive the love being offered him.

It’s never a waste to love.

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Has she become cold and concerned only about the household chores?  Has she forgotten her inner child?  Has she forgotten how to laugh?  Has she forgotten how beautiful she really is?

We sometimes have a tendency to forget ourselves and to set aside our needs in order to care for other people.  This is not bad!  But we must remember that the most important gift we could ever give to the world is to be the best of who we are.  It’s our very presence that should stir joy and inspiration in their hearts, not merely the things that we do.

Think about our relationship with God.  God gives us many things – food to eat, clothes to wear, friends to talk to, activities to enjoy, dreams to achieve, missions to accomplish.  But though these things be good and many, not one of them could ever compare to the Giver of them all.  Even if we could have His gifts, our happiness wouldn’t be complete without His Very Presence, the Gift of Himself.

We don’t seek God in order to have the world, we seek God because if we have Him, we wouldn’t need anything more!

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For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.  Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth. – Kahlil Gibran

We’ve heard so many people warn us that we shouldn’t love like that, that we should reserve some love for ourselves just in case.  It seemed practical, but it certainly didn’t sound romantic.  If love is like that, what’s the use of it?  How could it be love? And so we ignored these things and we fell in love, and then our hearts got broken and we remembered everything they told us about.  Was it wrong to have given up everything in the name of love?

The answer is yes and no.

We’re not wrong to think that love should be all-consuming, and that we dare sacrifice everything for it.  It’s the people and things we gave our hearts to that’s wrong, because only God deserves such kind of love.

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ – Matthew 22:37-39

Our love for God should be first.  Our love for others, even our most special beloved, should only be second.  Why?  Because people are not perfect.  No matter how much we love others, we still fail sometimes, we still hurt those whom we love the most.  Expecting perfect things from imperfect people isn’t romantic, it’s foolish.

The reason we need to be guided first by our love for God is that God’s love should be able to fill us first.  If not, we crave for so much love that nobody on earth could realistically be able to give it to us.

Nobody could stay with us 24 hours in a day.   Even our partners would certainly have something else to do.  Nobody could enjoy the same things with us all the time.  We’d have different interests and different ways of spending our days.  We’d have different ways of expressing love, and of receiving it.  Most of all, nobody could fully read our hearts. Only God knows the deepest yearnings of our soul, and only He could fulfil them.

Giving up everything for imperfect people is actually not being able to give them the best you could possibly give them.  Will giving up our self respect help others?  Will giving up our conscience be a true sign of love?  The best that we could give others is the best of who we are, and who else knows how to achieve that but God?

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

-Kahlil Gibran

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This is the reason why God respects our freewill, because He doesn’t want to force us just to love Him back.  It can never work out that way.  Even if God is all too willing to give us the best things, His love wouldn’t be able to form a relationship with us unless we are willing to receive that which is being given us.

Even The Sincerest Affection Can Be Ignored

In human relationships, our love, no matter how sincere it may be could also be rejected or ignored.  Though we do not love as unconditionally as God loves, we have a certain capacity to go on loving another person even if that person doesn’t love us back.  Still, without being able to respond to our love, a relationship is not truly forged, and both could not reap the sweet fruits of a truly meaningful and mutual relationship.

Why We Fall For Another Person

It can happen that we fall in love with a certain person because we see something beautiful in him, something he may not even see in himself.  Seeing this beauty that we may also have failed to find or develop in ourselves, we transfer all our love to that person who has it, and that person becomes our world, the very meaning of our lives.

Why The Relationship Doesn’t Work

That person however may not support us back, he may not even love himself the way we love him.  Thus, his actions do not produce a return flow of love either towards himself or towards us.  He is like a cistern with many holes that never gets filled, and that never really gets happy and satisfied.

For this reason, we don’t feel satisfied too, for all that we want is his happiness, for we have anchored our happiness upon his.

One question would be, “Why does he still maintain the superficial relationship if he doesn’t care so much about it?” Maybe he still derives some benefit from it, like someone who can always listen to his complaints or someone who could keep him company or maybe he just feels obliged somewhat to return the favor.

But he is not as attached to the relationship as the other person is because he may not have seen the beauty in the other person to really capture his heart.  His heart may also be closed such that he can’t accept anybody in it.  Or he could have a lot of filters, he wants some form or type of love which the other person couldn’t offer him.

Not having found his pearl of great price, he has the tendency to desert the relationship anytime.  Note that even while he is in the relationship, he is not happy and is not able to avail of the full benefits of the relationship.  He could then threaten to leave anytime whenever he finds another relationship that gives him the same benefits or even more, or whenever he already feels uncomfortable, irritated or guilty by being unable to meet the demands of the other person.

Do you have a true relationship with both people mutually working out for its good?

In my book "30 Days to Heal a Broken Heart" , you will be guided thru 30 days of healing just when you're hurting and you feel like no one really understands: Why am I hurting so much? What's wrong with me? Could I ever have him back again? Whatever happened to love? Should you end a relationship even if you still love each other? Can I ever be happy again? Must I forgive him? How did we end up hurting each other so much? Why couldn't he try harder like me? I don't know if I could ever forget him. Is there anyone who could ever love me? Why do I always seem to fall for the wrong person? Why is he not suffering as much as I am right now? What if he suddenly comes back to me? But he could be the one! Read more...

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When a relationship ends, it’s hard to separate the good memories from the painful ones.

Maybe one way to reconcile this is to think that even our painful memories have turned out to work for our good. We are now wiser and stronger because of them, and they’re as much a part of us as all the other good memories we had with the people we loved.

One relationship may end, but a new one may still begin, a new relationship formed by two people who have already changed and become better from everything that they’ve been through, both the good ones and the bad.

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There may even be cases where after a long separation, the other person suddenly comes back, and with a contrite heart, asks for forgiveness and desires to restore our relationship with them.  This brings about new questions within us and we ask ourselves if we have done something recently that got their attention or if we have somehow changed in such a way that we have become more attractive and worthy of love.

Though there may be some truth in these thoughts of ours, let us not forget that not every bad thing that happens in our relationships is our fault.  People leave for many other reasons and come back for reasons only they could possibly explain to themselves.

Why did they leave us in the first place? Maybe they needed time to find out who they really are apart from the relationship.  Why did they come back?  Maybe only after finding out who they are could they appreciate our worth and see also the beauty in who we are.

We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are. – Anais Nin

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There is only one limit to the power of God’s workings in our lives – TRUST.

We can’t give much to people who can’t trust us.  First of all, they would find it difficult, if not impossible to accept any good we want to do for them.  Further, the effect of anything we do for them will not be the same had they trusted us and received everything we’re giving them wholeheartedly and with joy.  People may even think we’re insulting them, that we have a hidden agenda or that we’re intending to do them harm.

The same is true with God.  No matter how much blessing God wants to shower upon us, we can only receive so much as our faith can allow us.

If we believe God to be selfish, we’d think He is only using us or that He would make us pay later on for everything we receive from Him.

But how do we trust someone? We trust someone by being able to know them very well.  How do we know him well enough? More than theoretical knowledge or heresy, we get to know a person well by personal contact and interaction with him, by being in his presence.

So it is with God.  We can read hundreds of books about Him and still remain doubtful of His goodness.  We can argue.  We can discuss philosophy.  But if we never have a personal encounter with him, we’ll never know Him.  We’ll never be able to trust in Him.

“We have almost forgotten that God is a Person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can. It is inherent in personality to be able to know other personalities, but full knowledge of one personality by another cannot be achieved in one encounter.  It is only after long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilities of both can be explored. – A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God”

Do you want to improve your relationship with someone? Spend more time with him, be in his presence.  Maybe then you’d get to know him well enough.  You’d know his heartaches, his plans, his innermost desires.  Maybe you’d discover how much you really matter to him and how he has already sacrificed a lot for your sake.  Maybe you’d feel something change within your heart as trust naturally springs forth from your encounters.  Maybe you’d know what it really means to be loved.

“Trust in the LORD and do good, dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. – Psalm 37:3”

FREE Download - "The Pursuit of God"

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True friendship consists not in the multitude of friends, but in their worth and value. – Ben Jonson

We can easily be deceived into thinking we have many friends.  This is especially so when we’re successful and we find ourselves always surrounded by people who applaud us in everything we do.

Even Jesus had such a period of time when He was always surrounded by a crowd of people that loved Him and followed Him wherever He went.  Invitations were numerous, almost everyone wanted His company.  It was an honor to be among His inner circle, not to mention quite beneficial too, for He had great power that could even heal the sick, cast out demons and raise the dead to life! Who wouldn’t want to have a friend like that?

No doubt, Jesus had been a true friend.  He did His best to help many, He wept with those who wept, He saved those who were condemned, He even performed a miracle to save some friends from social embarrassment when He turned water into wine though it was not yet His time to do so.

He had been there for everyone who needed Him, and He turned away no one who came to Him.

Why then had He been deserted by even His closest friends during the darkest hours of His life?

When He needed the disciples to be with Him, why had they been found sleeping?  Why had they been so easily scattered when Jesus had been arrested?  Why on earth had He been betrayed by one of His closest friends?

We can relate to this pain, this abandonment.  We can relate to this feeling of betrayal after we’ve done everything we could to make a relationship work.  Have we not been good and caring enough?  Have we not tried to become a good friend all these years?

We then realize that it’s not always our fault when things don’t work out as we wanted them to.  We realize that a person’s life consists of making difficult decisions and of making a choice based on what’s valuable to each one.

Tough times test this value. Difficult times enable us to know which friendships could really last.

People can so easily give out of their surplus, out of the things they don’t really need.  But who could give even out of their pain?  Who could be there for us even when it would no longer be comfortable for them to do so?

Only true friends can do that.

"A friend is someone who is there for you when he'd rather be anywhere else."
- Len Wein

Jesus stayed even when it was no longer comfortable.  He remained our friend even if it meant being hurt and laying down His own life to save us.

If we could try to count with our fingers all the people right now who could lay down our life for us, maybe we don’t even have to use both hands in doing so.

"In loneliness, in sickness, in confusion-the mere knowledge of friendship makes it possible to endure, even if the friend is powerless to help. It is enough that they exist. Friendship is not diminished by distance or time, by imprisonment or war, by suffering or silence. It is in these things that it roots most deeply. It is from these things that it flowers." -Pam Brown

You may be receiving a lot of things from a lot of people right now, but when you think about it, are they giving out only from their excesses?  When tough times come, would these people still be able to think about you and share from what little they have left?

Fear not the dark times for they reveal more things than those you could see in the light.  Things may not always go about as smoothly as we planned, but times such as these give us the opportunity to prove our friendships and to see what it is we really value most in life.

Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
– John 15:13, NASB

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Worship not a person for a good deed he has done for you.  Be grateful but don’t expect him to be perfect.

On the other hand, curse not a person for a wrong he has done to hurt you.  He may not be perfect, but he still carries the imprint of God’s goodness upon his soul.

Consider how you treat a friend and an enemy.

A person may not be a hundred percent against you, even a mortal enemy.  This person who hates you may really envy you, and hence, likes you or even admires you in some respects.  He may just be afraid to admit it and let you know.

On the other hand, a friend may not totally like you.  You may have common interests and goals, but you may also possess common weaknesses which you both despise.

Having the same dream could also be a joy.  But when one of you achieves that dream and the other doesn’t, there is a possibility that the one who failed may dislike the one who attained success because that one reminds him so much of his own failures.

Life is so much more than dividing people between being one’s friends and enemies, and we certainly don’t live in fairytales where the old ugly witch is always evil and the beautiful princess always has a heart of gold.

We can’t judge by mere physical appearances, nor could we tell a person’s character within the first few meetings we have with them.

Splitting the world between black and white only leaves us color-blind and lacking in true depth for there are other colors we need to see.

Life is a paradox at best.  Have discernment but judge not so easily, for you may only be judging yourself.

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