Love Extreme or Love Supreme
If love were an extreme sport …
What would drive a well-trained, space-experienced NASA astronaut to leave her family, stalk her romantic rival, and attempt to threaten and even murder her? Had to be some extreme kind of love.
Like the extreme kind of sports booming in popularity these days - snowboarding, ice climbing, BMX racing, snowmobile jumping to name a few. Perhaps add the latest extreme sport of driving 900 miles from Houston to Orlando without stopping for a break. What is it with these extreme sports that sets them apart from other not-so-boring activities of the past like scuba diving or demolition derby?
One of the reasons for the adrenaline rush pursued by X-Games participants and extreme sports enthusiasts alike is that these activities promote individual achievement. They push an individual’s threshold of endurance, pain, and ability. How many team extreme sports can you think of? Perhaps it’s a sign of the individualism of our youth culture, the generation that has pushed extreme sports to a new level.
So if love were an extreme sport, then the object wouldn’t so much be serving or helping another as pursuing one’s own adrenaline rush. Excelling in ability and position for self is the number one rule for this love game.
Which is why the Bible warns against extreme love. It may feel extremely adventurous and look extremely sacrificial but extreme love leaves a person extremely empty.
“If I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2,3). >From one extreme to another.
There is a different kind of love, however, than the extreme self-love that seeks its own adrenaline rush or individual gain. It is patient and kind. It isn’t rude or self-seeking. It keeps no record of wrongs. It always protects. This is the love that is “the greatest” and “the most excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:31, 13:13). This love “comes from God” (1 John 4:7). Not extreme but supreme, the best of love, the highest of love, the most selfless and sacrificial of love.
That’s how God loves us.
By his patient mercy after the first sin in Eden ruined his perfect plans for paradise in this world. By his faithful protection of wandering Israelites lost among international strife and storm-tossed disciples swamped with inability and fear. By his generous forgiveness for the same sin we’ve committed for the 77th time, to which he responds, “I forgive you, go in peace and sin no more,” for the 77th time. By the utmost sacrifice of his only Son, by the most intimate attention to little details in our lives we overlook, and by his gracious help so that we can do everything he asks using the strength and skills he gives.
Leave the adrenaline rush to extreme sports and let your love be supreme. Renew your relationships this week by practicing the kind of love that God applies to you.
This love “never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:8).
PRAYER: God of love, let my love be like yours so that my self-love, self-interest and self-ambition are absorbed by the supreme love you give through Jesus. Fill my heart with your loving forgiveness, then open my heart to pour out love to others for their benefit more than mine. Teach me your ways. Guide me in your paths. And lead me always in the way of supreme love. Amen.