Why?
Hello All,
Recently I was listening to a Spotify playlist that I had not created, so there were some songs I had never heard before. One of the songs was “WHY” by John Bellion featuring Luke Combs. The chorus of the song asks why love anything at all if you are just going to get hurt in the end.
My first reaction was to agree wholeheartedly with the lyrics. It made sense- wouldn’t it be easier to stop loving and stop caring about others? Then I wouldn’t have to deal with the pain, hurt and grief that comes when the relationship, or even friendship ends. I could just avoid the whole mess and be okay on my own.
But the longer I thought about it, I realized that was the wrong attitude to have. God calls us to love. God is love therefore as a follower of God; I need to be like Him. Which means to love. God showed us what love really looks like and instructs us to love one another.
As easy as it would be to harden my heart against love, I am called to love. Now that doesn’t mean I have to be best friends with everyone, and sometimes loving may even mean letting people go from my life. Which is the hardest type of love, in my opinion. But sometimes it is necessary for my own mental health.
It is these situations, where I have to let go to show the best kind of love that makes me agree with the lyrics of that song the most. In these situations, it would be easy to harden my heart, but the Bible does not tell us to harden our hearts, it tells us to guard our hearts. “Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.”- Proverbs 4:23.
God wants us to guard our hearts to avoid situations that set us up for heartbreak. Guarding our hearts is all important because everything else in our life flows from it. If we are constantly letting in things that are not from God, things from the flesh we will be miserable and honestly, not living in God’s plan for our lives.
Guarding my heart is one of the hardest lessons that I have ever had to learn. Because of a situation that happened recently I am dealing with a broken heart and setting boundaries. The whole process is painful for both me and the other person. All of this could have been avoided if I would have just guarded my heart at the beginning of the friendship.
While guarding your heart is so important, I also encourage you to be open to love. To share love with those around you- which could be as simple as smiling or giving a compliment to a stranger. I think we tend to make love a bigger emotion than it needs to be. I mean there are different levels of love. In every situation, we should strive to show God’s love.
True love comes through God. If the relationship causes anxiety or confusion, I urge you to examine the boundaries in the relationship and to consider if the relationship is rooted in God or came from God. Sometimes it will be hard to change the boundaries of a friendship/ relationship but sometimes it is necessary for your own health and your relationship with God. Through this season of love, with Valentine’s Day, upon us, I encourage you to meditate on Proverbs 4:23 and what that means for your own life. For me it means listening more intently to God and what He wants to tell me about the people I allow to have a special place in my life.
Much love,
Victoria