Contributed by CARP Las Vegas
A CARP Las Vegas member giving a presentation during one of CARP Las Vegas’ 2 Day Retreats.
As a CARP member, the life principles we choose to live by require continual commitment towards living for the sake of others. We may find great joy and fulfillment in this process but also experience burnouts. But we convince ourselves it's okay because a burnout and suffering is needed for growth and to become a better person. I need to endure and push myself more, so I can grow my capacity to love... Or do I?
My last four years of being a CARP member has been full of blessings and challenges. At many points in my journey, I faced limitations to love and to give continuously. I was trying to love others beyond the love that I was receiving, thinking that this sacrifice will allow my loving capacity to stretch and grow. I believed that some kind of love hidden inside of me would magically appear. At times, I found fulfillment from the response to the love I was giving which gave me an incentive to go beyond my limit to love. However, in the long run, I built negativity and resentment towards sacrificing. Before I knew it, my journey stopped being one of joy but of suffering, despite my effort to try to love unconditionally.
In the process of struggling through this dilemma, I came across the book Real Love by Greg Baer. This book changed my concept of love and helped me to find the answer to my struggles. In the book, he states, “We can’t love people unconditionally until we felt unconditionally loved ourselves. We cannot give what we don’t have.” I thought I knew this and the meaning behind it. But the more I delved into this concept, the more I realized how little I understood.
One profound example of unconditional love is Jesus Christ. He demonstrated his unconditional love for all of humanity despite the constant hardship he faced. Jesus was rejected and persecuted for loving all of God's children. My question is how Jesus had the capacity to still love unconditionally. I looked at some quotes from the Bible:
“We love, because He first loved us.”(1 John 4:19)
"Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.”(John 15:9)
"If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.”(John 15:10)
Jesus was unconditionally loving because he felt the abundant unconditional love of his Father, God. He did not love unconditionally from his own love but because he felt united with God and His love. He could love completely because he received love first. If even Jesus needed the unconditional love of God to love, then why do I think that I have the capacity to love unconditionally with my own love?
For a long time, I understood maturity as going from only receiving love to only giving love, but this form of maturing has not been working for me. The more I try to give while distancing myself from receiving love, I become more sour and resentful of loving. I feel used, exhausted, and tired of loving. For my life to be one of joy, I needed unconditional love. And to give unconditional love, I first needed to learn to receive it.
Founder of CARP, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, also known as Father Moon, describes God’s unconditional love as the following, “The place where God dwells is filled with love. It is a place where the more you give, the more you want to give and the more you receive, the more you want to return millions of times more than you receive.” (1971) The nature of love is not that of sacrifice but the willingness to want to love. Through this heart, we experience joy.
I have experienced this unconditional desire to love, where love was given not because it is my duty or obligation but rather because I felt so loved that I wanted to share my love.
I know this is not the case all the time, but, to this, Greg Baer made a very important point. When I feel sour and burnt out of giving love, I need to take a step back to check if I am receiving unconditional love. I need to check if I am feeling cared for and loved unconditionally from someone. If not, am I making the effort to find the source of love, God.
I suggest that we can receive this unconditional love from the ultimate source, God. But experiencing the unconditional love of God all the time might not be easy. It is challenging to feel God’s presence and his unconditional love. When that is hard, what works for me is to find someone who resembles God’s unconditional love and acceptance. Greg Baer also expresses the importance to find a person who can love us unconditionally. He states, “Most of us have never seen consistent unconditional love, and that is why we have a confusing relationship or none at all with God, whose most important characteristic is perfect love.”
For us to understand God’s unconditional love, we first need to experience even a drop of that love through a wise, loving person, like a parent or mentor. And once you feel loved and cared for, you will want to love, just as you were loved. We need to fight to give love, but, maybe even more, we need to fight to find our source of unconditional love.
Discover and submit more Principled Perspectives at carplife.org/research.