We Love Thy Law

How can I learn to see God's laws as evidence of His love?

I've heard the debate about "love vs. law" for years now, and for a long time perceived love and law as two separate principles.

The idea I always perceived went something like this:

We have God's love, and we have His law.

He loves us, but He gives us laws anyway, as a form of "tough love" to get us up to scratch.

This mentality has been one that has limited my view of Who God is and how He shows His love. It has only been since I've shifted my perspective to understand that God's laws are the evidence we need of His love that I feel that I've grown in my trust and understanding of God's character, which has given me more capacity to love His other children more confidently and powerfully than I could before internalizing this principle.

One of the things that first helped me comprehend this was babysitting for a friend.

This friend's children had been over for several hours, and I noticed how much more relaxed I was about enforcing rules that I was with enforcing with my own children. My children were quite young at the time, so I had rules about eating ("you need to eat at least __ bites of your dinner before you get dessert"), bedtimes ("no staying up to watch TV until late at night"), and behaviors.

With these friends visiting, though, I noticed only after their stay that they were free to have dessert even though they'd turned up their noses at dinner. I had let them stay up and quietly watch TV long after my own children had gone to bed because it was easier than fighting The Great Nightly Bedtime Battle with kids I didn't know as well, and the words they used were not nearly as stringently enforced on my behalf as what I was teaching my own children was appropriate--or not.

Why was I so lenient with these kids and so strict with my own?

It could have been easily perceived by my 4-year-old child that their Mom giving them dessert without demanding a few bites of vegetables first was proof or evidence that I must love them more, because I was being "nicer" to them.

But in reality, I wasn't invested in the long-term outcome of these children's behaviors.

They weren't mine.

I was going to send them back to their own mom, who I'm sure had many bedtime battles and discussions over dinner vs. dessert, and so I didn't have to commit to enforcing rules that I knew would lay foundations of behaviors over the next years.

With my own kids, however, I had different expectations and different intents.

Because they were my children, I loved them enough to see the long-term effects of learning a value for wholesome foods, healthy sleep patterns, and helping create patterns of using language that was respectful and kind.

Thankfully, my kids had enough interactions with me before this interaction to know that my love for them was real and powerful. We've had countless loving, tender moments in the years since that time, and when they feel doubtful of their worthiness or of my love for them, I am here to reassure them of just how cherished they truly are.

But, if they had remained in their four-year-old state, harboring doubts about my favoritism to their friends as shown in my lax enforcement of my rules, that love could have been called into question.

They could have even demanded that if I truly loved them, I would not ask anything difficult of them, like eating veggies or going to bed early.

When considering that we are still, spiritually speaking, at least, children, how is it surprising that we sometimes equate to being asked to do difficult things with a lack of love on God's part for us?

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland once memorably spoke on this topic: "Sadly enough, my young friends, it is a characteristic of our age that if people want any gods at all, they want them to be gods who do not demand much, comfortable gods, smooth gods who not only don't rock the boat but don't even row it, gods who pat us on the head, make us giggle, then tell us to run along and pick marigolds.

"Talk about man creating God in his own image! Sometimes--and this seems the greatest irony of all--these folks invoke the name of Jesus as one who was this kind of 'comfortable' God. Really? He who said not only should we not break commandments, but we should not even think about breaking them....Does that sound like 'comfortable' doctrine, easy on the ear?

"...Christlike love is the greatest need we have on this planet in part because righteousness was always supposed to accompany it. So, if love is to be our watchword, as it must be, then by the word of Him who is love personified, we must forsake transgression and any hint of advocacy for it in others. Jesus clearly understood what many in our modern culture seem to forget: that there is a crucial difference between the commandment to forgive sin (which He had an infinite capacity to do) and the warning agains condoning it (which He never ever did even once." (April 2014)

God is the perfect example of One Who loves us perfectly, with high expectations of who He wants us to become.

So how do we show that kind of steady love and law in our own relationships with those around us, particularly with those who may not be choosing a relationship with God right now?

Jared Halverson gives a beautiful example of us utilizing the symbol of the cross in ourselves.

Picture a person with feet firmly planted in the law, immovable and strong as a tree, deeply rooted in testimony of God and love for Him. This same person has their arms outstretched to reach out for those around them and the powerful flexibility and core strength to gently and persistently draw them back in with pure compassion and humility.

This image has been a powerful one for me to seek to emulate in my own relationships with loved ones who are struggling, angry, or floundering in their relationship with God.

My natural tendency in the past has been either to go rushing after them, leaving my own foundation in the name of compassion, seeking to save them and drag them back to where it feels safe for me, OR, equally dangerous, to turn away from them or cling to my own foundation, arms closed in judgement and fear.

Let me tell you, neither extreme has ever worked to create a healthy relationship.

It has always either resulted in me trying to control or manipulate them, floundering myself, and then struggling back to try to heal my own relationship with God--or, on the contrary side, clinging desperately to my own foundation of rules and regulations out of fear, unwilling to open my own arms, alienating others through my judgment and self-righteousness.

Having the strength to be both deeply rooted in my own covenant relationship with God while also courageously reaching out my arms to others around me takes an internal core strength and balance I do not often or gracefully attain.

It gives me something to strive for, however, and when I find myself feeling fearful or angry about a loved one's behaviors, I can ask myself these two questions: "Where am I in relation to my foundation?" and then "How wide can I stretch my arms?"

As I have learned to see law as evidence of love, it has stretched my personal capacity for charity, for turning away from judgment, for love of God and love of all His children, regardless of how far away from my own lifestyle and choices they may be.

God does love His children, as evidenced by His giving us His own Son, Jesus Christ, to Atone for our sins and give us the opportunity to return to Him.

The more I've studied about His character, the more I've learned how His laws are evidence of His love--and I'm learning to love them, too. In loving His law, I'm finding it giving me the capacity to love His children more freely as well.

Categories: : Discernment, Faith, Heavenly Father