What Is Love?

“Some say love, it is a river that drowns the tender reed. Some say love it is a razor that leaves your soul to bleed. Some say love, it is a hunger, and endless aching need. I say love, it is a flower and you, its only seed.” — Amanda McBroom

We spill a lot of ink talking and singing about love, but we rarely stop to question or discuss what love actually is or isn’t. For that matter, there are several definitions, categories, or uses of the term. Sometimes they confuse our conversations as we fail to grasp how another is using the term. At heart, this is largely due to uncertainty over defining love, understanding what it is, or what we even mean by it. Our poetry makes attempts to describe it, but often in conflicting ways.

“Oh, love to some is like a cloud, to some as strong as steel, for some a way of living, for some a way to feel, and some say love is holding on and some say letting go, and some say love is everything, and some say they don't know.” — John Denver

If I talk about love from the standpoint of human psychology, it is a complex subject referring to various relational or attachment bonds. Then, again, there is a triangular theory of love defined along emotional, cognitive, and physical axes. There are also the three essential Greek terms for love, eros, ludus, and storge, which treat questions of passion, play, and familial love. Then there is the New Testament term agape, which is normally interpreted as a pure or sacrificial love.

“What is love? Oh, baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more.” — Nestor Alexander Haddaway

Our music most often speaks of love in terms of romance or sexuality. That lies at the heart of what we call love songs or love stories. There are also those songs or accounts of love gone wrong, which is actually abuse, a perversion of love.

“Love can free us, to it some react as a slave. Funny, we love 'em more when they're relaxed in a grave. Wonder if a thug is raw, is he actin' afraid? Everybody loves sun, why do I attract shade? Heard of the love of money, but compassion it pays.” — Lonnie Rashid Lynn (Common)

We often deal with a limited understanding of what love is and what love can accomplish. We think of love in terms of giving and receiving, each in a single direction from the lover to the loved one. The reality, however, runs much deeper than that. While love gives, the giver likewise receives. What one receives is not the same as what one gives, but the return on the investment enriches the life of the giver in ways we find most difficult to address. It brings is own fulfillment, akin to the joy of children feeding ducks. It’s not the food that nourishes the children. It is the act of giving, providing, showing compassion, and being in the giver’s seat, rather than simply receiving from the hands of others.

“I need you more than you know, you can't leave. She told me if it's real love, let it breathe and it will be what it will be. Freedom love, freedom love, freedom love I’ll let you go. Freedom love, freedom love, freedom love I won't hold on. Fly away.” — Rexx Life Raj

This compassionate giving nurtures in both directions. It enables life on two ends, even if through different means and modes. Just as parents care for their children with little to no expectations placed on reciprocity, so is love. As love gives, it enables us to see in ourselves something more than a needy person. It enables us to participate in being a solution beyond self-interest. The end result, however, is actually our benefit as well as the benefit of another.

“Love, love, love, love, the gospel in one word is love. Love your neighbor as your brother, love, love, love.” — Anonymous

When we talk of God’s love or the love to which we are called in Christ Jesus, we tend to speak in lofty generalities that never address more than some nebulous feeling of warmth, belonging, or comfort. Rarely do we attempt to actually specify what this love of God is, how it should impact us, or how we are to approximate it. When we do, it is in story form, for that is pretty much how Jesus modeled and taught his followers about God’s love and the love we are to have between ourselves and all others.

“I love the mountains. I love the rolling hills. I love the flowers. I love the daffodils. I love the fireside when all the lights are low.” — American folk song

The love to which we are called has nothing to do with our attachment to pleasant things and pleasant people. That is part of life, but is a distraction to the theme of how we are to love one another. We can and should love people, even when they are unpleasant. We are all unpleasant at times, but that does not affect God’s love for us.

“Love! You are love! Better far than a metaphor can ever, ever be. Love! You are love! My mystery of love!” — Santino Fontana and Sara Jean Ford (The Fantasticks)

Poets have long written of love, stretching the imagination in search of metaphors to describes feelings of longing for which words seem insufficient. The emotional longing of romantic or erotic love moves us at emotional levels that reach beyond the sphere that normal language is able to access. That love, however, is very different from the love Jesus talked about and exemplified to us.

“The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell; it goes beyond the highest star, and reaches to the lowest hell. The wand'ring child is reconciled by God's beloved Son. The aching soul again made whole, and priceless pardon won.” — Frederick M. Lehman

The agape Jesus addressed and demonstrated is often referred to in terms of sacrifice. It would probably be better to speak of it as lacking self-interested motivation. Love is the desire to act in the best interest of another, without qualification. It depends not on circumstances or conditions. It simply seeks to interact for the well-being of the loved one.

This is the divine action on our behalf in Jesus. God acts for our reconciliation, but also in calling us to something better than that for which we so often settle. God calls us into community, a community that seeks the welfare of all, not just the few. It is in this kind of community that we develop more fully and more wholesomely. It is in this kind of community that we are safe, fulfilled, loved, encouraged, and empowered to be all we can become, all we were created to become.

“What wondrous love is this, that caused the Lord of bliss to bear the dreadful curse for my soul.” — Anonymous

This self-giving operates in the benefit of all, even in the context of short-term pain for the lover. It is also the quality of love we see in what we describe as heroic and valiant efforts to rescue others from danger. This love is willing to suffer loss for a greater purpose than transient happiness or comfort.

“Love holds a royal scepter, and mercy looketh down, both calling to the sinner, “Come wear a starry crown”; Oh, sweet divine compassion! Poor sinner, taste and see, if grace thy heart may fashion, then love shall reign in thee.” — Daniel S. Warner

Love in the sense of agape looks to the need of the loved, not to the quality of their actions. It sees past the temper tantrum to assess the loved one’s unmet issues. It seeks to understand why they are acting out, why they have lost control of their emotions, and what has led them to step beyond norms and expectations. It places the welfare of the person and the relationship on a higher plane than the actions or words of the moment.

“Perverse and foolish, oft I strayed, but yet in love he sought me; and on his shoulder gently laid, and home, rejoicing, brought me.” — Sir Henry Williams Baker

The purpose of this love is reconciliation. It reconciles us to ourselves. It reconciles us to one another. It allows for life in community. It allows for trust to strengthen the bonds of our connections. It allows for healing. It allows for development, growth, change, transformation. It does not force us into a mold against one’s will. Instead, it seeks to understand and assist the other in becoming their truest and most fulfilled selves. This is, after all, the Greek and Hebrew understanding for the words we translate as salvation. It is to be made whole, healthy, complete, and fulfilled.

This is abundant living. Love is the path to getting us there, not alone, but hand in hand, heart in heart, together in community. This is the love of God in Christ Jesus. Would that we better understood it.

— ©Copyright 2025, Christopher B. Harbin 

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