9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17 This is my command: Love each other.”
—The words of Jesus from John 15:9-17
Have you ever loved someone who did not love you back? I’m not talking about love-gone-sour. Nor am I talking about lust, or extreme “like,” or some other permutation of what someone might call “love.” I’m talking about a heart-swelling, breath-taking, stomach-lurching, deep, abiding love for someone who has no inclination whatsoever to love you in return. I’m talking about “unrequited love.”
The Merriam Webster Online Dictionary defines “unrequited” as “...not reciprocated or returned in kind.” Whenever I think about unrequited love, I am grateful to God that He brought into my life one very special person who did dane to love me back. Not only did she return my love, she has also stood by me through five years of dating—including a two-year-long engagement—and 43 years of marriage. Even with this magnificent counter-example of unrequited love in my own life, I still have childhood memories of unrequited love.
I have a distinct memory from the summer I turned seven years old. I met a girl while on vacation at the shore of Lake Erie in Silver Creek, NY. I simply could not get this girl out of my mind. But, the girl gave no indication that she even knew I existed, let alone possessed any feelings at all for me. But, after returning to my home, I felt an enormous sense of loss knowing I would likely never see this girl again. My mother asked me why I was moping around the house. I told her what I was feeling: a great emptiness and loss. She chuckled. smiled one of her tender, knowing smiles, and told me I must be “in love.”
Over the next few years growing up, I felt those same feelings a few more times. In every case, either due to my lack of manliness or social status, or quirkiness, or some other undefined reason, no hope existed that the girl for whom I had those feelings would, or could, ever return them.
Each time I felt those feelings of deep longing and profound connection with another human being, I also felt a strange sense of wonder. I wondered—at least for a while—if the person could ever love me back. Eventually the answer always emerged. And, that answer was apparently, “No!” Alas! Unrequited love!
Perhaps you have had an experience like mine in your childhood, teenage years, or even in your adulthood. Can you remember how you felt? Can you imagine how surprised the object of your unrequited love might be if he or she could learn how much love you felt?
Now, imagine for a moment that you are God. You wanted to have a relationship with a being that you created who could choose to love you and obey you. And then, the first real choice that being makes is to disobey the one and only rule that you give it.
Even then, your love does not abate. In fact, you love your created beings so much that you send your only son to earth. After your son lives for a time as a human, you instruct him to give his life—to shed his very blood—on a Roman cross of torture.
In so doing, your son bears the penalty for every sin your created beings have ever committed and for every sin your created beings will ever commit. If that was not enough, you raised your son from the dead to give evidence to your created beings that they have a life after this one. And, if they respond to the wooing of your Holy Spirit, they will spend that after-life with you, forever.
Recognizing that your created beings do not have the capacity to love you back, you graciously send your Holy Spirit to convince them of their need for your love. By the power of that same Holy Spirit, you enable them to love you in return. All they have to do is yield their selfish will to your perfect will.
Yes, imagine for a moment that you are God. Then, think about how you actually do respond to Him in the course of your daily life. I suspect that, if you’re at all like me, you feel humbled and shocked. Humbled that the very God of the universe would love you so much. Shocked at how little effort you make to obey His will for your life.
As usually happens with childhood experiences, my childish unrequited love pales in the face of the kind of unrequited love that God experiences from us every single moment of every day. Help us, Lord! Help us to put aside everything that stands in the way of our obedience to Your will for us. Help us to allow Your Holy Spirit to enable us to love you in return.
Will you pray with me?
Thank You, God, for loving us. Thank You for sending Jesus to be our Savior. Thank You for sending us Your Holy Spirit to dwell within us. Be pleased to help us recognize—deep within our beings—how much You truly love us. Then, may that awareness motivate us to faithfully obey You and, through our obedience, love you with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.
Precious Father, we honor You for Your life-transforming love for us. May we respond in such a way as to eradicate any sense that Your love remains unrequited. And, in Your great love, please continue to guide us along the pathway You have laid out before us. With overwhelming humility, we thank You for hearing our prayer in and through the precious Name of Jesus, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
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