I woke up at 3 in the morning and couldn’t fall back asleep. I was wrestling with some thoughts and I’m still trying to make sense of them, so I’m apologizing ahead of time if some of what I’m working out here sounds like the 4 a.m. ramblings of an insomniac because that’s kind of what they are.
During quiet moments of my day, I’ve been thinking about the “gospel” women are being sold right now. I keep tossing it around in my mind– the ways it tempts me personally, how I’ve pushed back against it, wondering if I’m wrong to not just accept it. I don’t think the women I know are prone to falling for the typical prosperity, health and wealth type presentations. We’ve seen enough suffering to know that “name it and claim it” is just not how God works. We’ve read enough Scripture to know God blesses the poor and humbles the proud. We’re too wise to be sucked in to the idea that material wealth is the ultimate goal of our faith.
But what happens when “love” is presented as the answer to all our problems?
Love is good, right? God is love. Love is what we should be motivated by and moving towards. Love is how we feel about our families, what we want for our friends. How can the pursuit of love be wrong?
I’m concerned that the version of “love” that’s being sold to Christian women has very little resemblance to the love of the Bible. But it’s always presented in the trappings of Jesus. The version of Jesus we’re being handed is a guy who loved everybody, so obviously he was supportive of whatever life choices they made, he helped them feel good about themselves, he encouraged them to be their truest version of their inner goddess. . . or something like that.
This version of love carries no crosses. It speaks no truth, other than the “truth” that whatever feels like love to you is what you should move toward. This “love” leaves marriages that aren’t fulfilling, refuses to lovingly train children in need of discipleship, won’t provide accountability to friends who are struggling with sin (unless that sin is the sin of not loving themselves enough).
We are embracing a prosperity gospel of love where the highest good is chasing our bliss and finding our dreams. We have made an idol, a god, out of what we believe is love. We are sure what God most wants is for us to be happy.
I get a little nauseous walking down the home decor aisle of Target and seeing this philosophy on full display. I just refuse to hang something up in my home that says “Do what makes you happy.” Um, no. I have yet to find any happiness in diaper changing or helping with math homework, but it is what I do because of love. ACTUAL LOVE, not just the emotions of happiness you get when you’re “living your dreams.”
Life is hard. It can be painful and cold and full of suffering. And in spite of it all, we keep being love. Sometimes it’s the kind of love that makes you feel warm and safe and sometimes it’s the kind of love that scares you to death. It’s a love that risks when you’d rather play it safe. It’s a love that draws healthy boundaries when you’d rather just be seen as nice. It’s a love that says, “Let’s try again.”
I have come to the conclusion that when you are most concerned with the happiness of another person, you are doing them no favors. When you’re most concerned with your own happiness, you’re heading for disaster. It isn’t our happiness that we’re supposed to be chasing and encouraging others to pursue. It’s love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. It’s the love that manifests itself through all those other virtues, not the kind of love that manifests itself in our own egos or satisfaction.
Can we talk for a minute about how “loved” Jesus was? No romantic relationships, he didn’t receive his identity through parenthood, he had 12 friends that half the time didn’t seem to get what he was about, and there was a crowd of people who alternately adored him and then ACTUALLY WANTED TO KILL HIM. You can’t tell me that Jesus was running around doing what made him personally happy and following his bliss. He was working with a different perspective. He wasn’t about his will. He was about the will of his Father.
When we take our own will out of the equation, when we realize we were made for a purpose and that purpose goes beyond just feeling good about our choices and making other people feel good about theirs, then we can do the hard things that sometimes get us ostracized and hated. I’m not too good to be hated. I’m not above that. If I’m hated for the right things, then that’s okay. I’m not going to sell you a gospel that says if you do it “right” then all that’s coming your way is positive vibes and good feelings.
Women want to be loved. We want to be accepted and invited and we want to be part of the club that’s seen as fun and warm and supportive. We want the prosperity of happy that’s being held out to us if we’ll just believe in ourselves/our dreams/our potential enough to pursue it. But I think that “happiness” is a lie. It ultimately leaves me feeling like a failure when the love I’ve been promised doesn’t seem to be fulfilling me the way I was told it would. It leaves a trail of wounds behind it as I pursue my happiness at the expense of others.
So if you’re up at 3 a.m. feeling frustrated about this new prosperity gospel you’re being sold and how you feel oddly left out as you lead your quiet life of faithfulness and contentment, just know I am with you. Life is hard enough without having love and happiness marketed to you as some kind of lifestyle or product we should all go out and get. Love is what we do. It’s who we are. It’s what we’ve been freely given and what we can give even when it’s hard.
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