Love Grown Cold
By Kaitlyn Yiu
“At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” (Matt. 4:11-13, NIV)
With all that’s going on in our world, one of my greatest fears is becoming yet another cold, jaded New Yorker, eyes gazing only on what’s directly in front of me, without so much as a glance at all the things, the people, the suffering surrounding me. I’m afraid I’ll wake up one day, read the news-after-news about the latest tragedy, terror, trauma, and then move on to the rest of my day because, well, what else am I supposed to do/ that’s someone else’s problem/ life goes on…right? Or at least, isn’t that how we’re told to deal with things here? We grieve and lament and suffer for maybe a day (or two), but then we inevitably “adapt” and go back to full speed ahead because we have schedules to keep and plans to make and dreams to catch.
But what happens when it isn’t just one life or one tragedy we’re dealing with? What if it isn’t just one news report, but a second, third, tenth, hundredth of an unnecessary, unjust death, a city or region in flames, and millions of people experiencing loss, heartbreak, devastation? What happens when, even with the news “turned off,” we encounter story after story of pain and suffering and needs failing to be met? How do we respond?
I’m sure we know how we’d like to respond. We’d like to be the kind of people that are moved by every heartbreaking, heart-wrenching story. We’d like to be the kind of people whose tears still run for those whose lives are being threatened or challenged daily by people or by circumstance. We’d like to be people of justice, seeking and speaking and defending the truth in love. We’d like to be people of courage, extending help and care and even sacrifice where and when it’s needed. Heck, we’d like to believe we’d remotely CARE when someone/multiple someones cry for help.
But Jesus said that the love of many will grow COLD. That, just like this increasingly freezing weather (I’m a winter person, but why is it 30 degrees in October!?), our hearts for the suffering, for the concerns of others, are growing bitter and brisk, hardened by the sin and brokenness we daily see and experience and dread.
One of my favorite quotes of all time is from C.S. Lewis, one of the most profound Christian authors of his day:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
If love is the antidote to our hardened hearts and broken world, then selfishness is the poison that reverses its work. Selfishness prevents us from seeing anything beyond our four walls or peripherals. Selfishness decides that our lives and our struggles are more burdensome and worthy of attention than others. Or, if this sounds too harsh, perhaps we truly WANT to care, but don’t feel qualified or yet-ready to do so (what could we possibly even say or do to help?). Yet no matter how seemingly justified or logical the train of thought, selfishness leaves us empty and callous, perhaps somewhat carefree but also careless.
“Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little” (Luke 7:47). If we are to return to a state of learning/re-learning how to love the way Jesus calls us to, we need to recognize first the extent of unfathomable and undeserved mercy and grace we have received from Him. When we are constantly bent on what we don’t yet have, how much we are lacking, there will never be an appropriate time to care about or care for others. But when we are able to daily, regularly recognize all the gifts, blessings, and vast LOVE God pours into our own lives by way of the cross, when we begin to understand and see ourselves the way Jesus does…His generosity to us naturally translates into generosity towards others—deep, radical, sacrificial love, in words and in action. Our incapable, selfish, self-seeking hearts will slowly begin to heal, soften, and grow, longing to “lay itself down for others,” longing to pour out and give as we’ve so abundantly received.
I know it doesn’t always feel that simple… we are living in a time where there is so much pain, brokenness, death and deception surrounding us, that the easiest thing to do would be to close our eyes and shut ourselves off from the rest of the world. To just tune out and zone out because a detached heart is better than a broken one, right? But the call to follow Christ is the call to love. And the call to love is the call to exchange our tendency towards fear, worry and self-protectiveness for a heart tender towards the beauty and brokenness of others…a life laid down and surrendered to the message of the gospel, the message of enduring faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love.
“…the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matt. 24:13, NIV). At the end of the day, our deliverance from this tumultuous time will not come from a vaccine, a competent president or a revolution…but from a steadfast love, a love that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:7, NIV)… a love that, founded in the love of Christ, lasts far beyond the chaos we are living in now. A love that does not grow cold, but burns fiercely for the lives and hearts of others, and for the hope that there is redemption, restoration and resurrection to come.