Something I’ve been learning is that to love is to choose pain. Every time we let another person have a place of affection and significance in our lives, we’re wilfully allowing that person to potentially hurt us. In a Star Trek Enterprise episode, Phlox, who is the only Denobulan on the Enterprise at that time, observes the ‘oddities’ of the human species that he is surrounded by and is struck by the human’s tendancy toward self-inflicted heartache. He observes that the human race has a natural need for emotional connection, and will go to ‘unreasonable’ lengths to find it. He watches as the crew subject themselves to emotional movies for entertainment and as Captain Archer becomes emotional over his poorly dog and concludes that the human need for attachment both recognises and embraces the pain involved. To the Denobulan (and of course to the Vulcan onboard), this is all entirely irrational. Why would one willfully form an attachment with another if they know that any level of heartache is involved? It seems absurd. The humans onboard, however, are unmoved by Phlox’s objections and consistenly assert and demonstrate that connection and relationship are always more than worth the cost to oneself.

I love this episode (apart from the general weirdness and lack of a higher morality that exists in the Star Trek universe). I love what is being communicated through the script writing: that we will wilfully choose to suffer for love and that to do so core to our identity. We were made for love. Now, the Star Trek example is an imperfect one, because it is devoid of the revelation of the love of Jesus. The human’s drive for love and emotional connection is, at it’s base, selfish: they’re seeking fulfilment for themsleves. The example is a human one. However, true love, the love that we were all created for is selfless at it’s root. The truth that “love suffers long” (1 Cor 13:4 NKJV) is exactly what Jesus came to show us. He came that we would understand that His love is deep and wide and unsearchable in the lengths it will go for us and that that is how He desires us to love eachother: selflessly, adandonedly, and entirely.

A few years ago, there was some controversy over Cory Asbury’s song Reckless Love. Many in the Christian community objected to the perfect love of God being refered to as ‘reckless’ and encouraged worship leaders to refuse to lead their congregations with it becasue it communicated a ‘poor’ theology through its connotation that God is careless and irresponsible in His pursuit of us. As a worship leader, I remember reading these atricles and trying to dig into it. I researched the word ‘reckless’ and found its definition to essentially be: ‘heedless of the danger’. When I read that I laughed. Isn’t that exaclty what Jesus did? He went to the greatest length at the greatest cost to Himself (not so much in His physical death, but in the momentary seperation from the Father that resulted from bearing the weight of the sin of the world) to give us eternal access into His presence. What could be more reckless than to disregard the danger to oneself even to the point of death?

Steaffny Gretzinger’s (yes, I reference her a lot) Sing My Way Back is one of my favourite love songs. One of my favourite lines goes, “If we’re not falling, we’re not flying. You can’t have love without the pain.” I love this recognition that choosing heartache and pain is the only path to connection and joy. Jesus showed us that the only way to have true, deep relationships with others is to give them our hearts in such a way that we let them hurt us. That’s why it’s improtant who we let in. When we choose to trust someone, we give them permission to hurt us in a way that only someone we love deeply can.

In another fictional example, Akiko from the 2021 G.I. Joe prequel Snake Eyes tells Snake Eyes (an outsider to the Arashikage clan) that she got her scar from ‘trusting a guy’. In telling Snake Eyes this, she recognises that loving someone again means willfully allowing herself to be hurt by that person because they will inevitably eventually betray trust and wound her. And that’s *spoiler* exactly what Snake Eyes goes on to do. But that’s the beauty in it all: that we get to love eachother at our best and our worst. Back to the real world: the whole point of it all is that we get to catch a glimpse of Jesus’ love for us by loving the way He does: relentlessly, unendingly, unconitionally, and fully. This is the only path to joy: choosing pain. Not because we’re sadistic, but because we’ve counted the cost as Jesus taught and found the value of relationship to be immeasurable.

This is what Jesus showed us. That “There’s no shadow (He) won’t light up, mountain (He) won’t climb up coming after (us)” (Reckless Love, Cory Asbury). He came to show us that He wants to make us His. Because being His is the only reason to breathe. And loving like Him is not only what we were designed for (as being made in His image), but it’s also our joy and prize. Both in loving Him (which is more, more than enough), and also in loving eachother. The joy of which this life can’t understand.

So, I’m learning to love in ways that don’t protect my rights or shield my heart from pain. Our mandate as Christians is certianly to protect those around us and to defend their rights (Proverbs 3`1:8-10), but not to protect oursleves from pain. Paul encourages us again and again to partake in Christ’s sufferings and to do so with joy (1 Peter 4:12-13, Romasn 5:3-4), repeating the same thing Jesus said in John 16:33, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Getting to love like this is my delight. Loving Jesus and also those around me is worth my life. Suffering for the sake of loving Jesus and those He’s given me is what makes love so precious. So costly and incomparable. And not only that. What it does in my heart and soul in connecting me to my Lover is worth starting it all over again. I get to love. As Ruelle puts it, “It’s the best thing that I’ll ever do.”