Love HarderSample

Love Hard vs. Hard Love

Let me be clear...loving harder does NOT equate with abuse of any sort. Love does not require me to be within striking distance. In fact, love is not location-sensitive.

So, what does it mean to LOVE HARDER? Well, I have three children. My wife and I have done the best we can to raise them to be moral, responsible humans who care about themselves, their family, and their communities. They are also not perfect. So, periodically, they step out of line and do a left turn on the values we’ve taught them. When they do this, I have some choices:

A. I can get angry and punish them

B. I can ignore them

C. I can make them aware of their behavior and do nothing

Or, D. I can dig a little deeper into why, process with them, and figure out how to direct them to more productive behavior

Choice D seems like it would take much more time than the others, huh?

And this is the challenge...loving harder takes effort. Loving harder is the long game!

Loving harder means I take responsibility (not blame) and push for the best mutual outcome.

Hard love...may be another step up. The best mutual outcome may mean I have to help my child live elsewhere if we can’t get to a place of respect and healthy harmony.

Sometimes, love confronts. Jesus confronted and turned over tables in the temple because he was angry at how the money changers were taking advantage of worshippers coming to the temple to give sacrifices. Even in His healing practices, telling the cripple (a man who had not walked before) to get up, grab his bed and walk was an exercise in tough love or HARD LOVE. Jesus could have held out His hand and guided the man to His feet. But instead, He gave him a faith command that had he not followed, he would have remained in his crippled condition.

And that’s how it is with HARD LOVE...in order to move those we love from their crippled condition, we may need to keep our distance while giving them the HARD LOVE commands intended to help them move to a place of health.