Brave Love
By Alisha Renee
I think one of the bravest things we can do is love people. I honestly do. People can be scary! They can be unpredictable, and they can hurt us. Who hasn’t known the sting of betrayal, the stab of rejection, or the slap of misjudgement? Who hasn’t reached out and later wished they’d sat back, stayed silent, and just not cared. Love can hurt, deeply. But it can also heal, powerfully.
Brave love can feel like a battleground in the arena of the heart. As I’ve reached out to people, I’ve had my motives questioned, my actions misconstrued, my efforts rejected, and my encouragement scorned. And in those moments, when I just want to take back my vulnerable offering and hide, I remember the whispered words from my heavenly Father after an impromptu outreach when I was 17, ‘Alisha, some will reject you, but others will accept the gift you offer, and for that reason you must keep on giving.’
There was a moment on a mission trip when I felt to share a word of encouragement with one of my leaders. I bravely offered it only to be brutally shut down with, ‘You need your head read!’ At only 16, I dissolved into tears and hightailed it out of her presence. I didn’t understand. How could a kind word cause such a harsh reaction? It turned out the affirming words had touched a raw spot on her bruised self-esteem. She apologised, and I’m glad she helped me to understand. But it still hurt. No one likes having an offered gift shoved back in their face.
This experience taught me something powerful about loving others. Sometimes it is people’s own fear and pain that drives their reactions towards us—and that isn’t a reason to turn off love. Wounded people may bite, but that doesn’t mean their souls don’t need tending. We can’t let rejection or critical words stop us from applying the balm of loving-kindness. We need to move towards broken people, not away. We need to keep tending, keep caring, keep risking. As Danny Silk reminds us in his book, Keep Your Love On, it’s our choice whether we turn our love off or keep it on.
I choose to keep love on.
When I was a young teacher, I encountered a student whose behavior was challenging—to say the least. He was disrespectful, disobedient, and angry—really angry. I couldn’t get through with warmth and smiles, or with enthusiasm and creativity. My usual repertoire of building connection wasn’t working. I needed my heavenly Father’s help. As I prayed, God gave me a glimpse of Johnny’s wound (not his real name). It was a mother wound. Along with this revelation, He gave me a strategy—Love. He also gave me a promise that became my anchor through the turbulent waters of reaching out to this troubled student, ‘Love never fails’ (1 Cor. 13:8).
It wasn’t easy.
No other student had required me to dig my heels so deeply into the foundation of love. When it got hard, I remember holding on to something I’d once read in The Cross and the Switchblade. David Wilkerson, a preacher from Pennsylvania, had felt called to preach the gospel to gang members in New York. One of the gang leaders, Nicky Cruz, threatened him:
‘You come near me and I'll kill you!’
Wilkerson replied, ‘Yeah, you could do that. You could cut me up into a thousand pieces and lay them in the street, and every piece will still love you.’
This hardcore commitment to love challenged me. It still does. How much am I willing to risk for someone to know they are loved and fought for? This student’s weapon wasn’t a switchblade, but his angry reactions made me wonder if there would ever be a breakthrough.
One day, Johnny ran out of the classroom and hid in a corner. I found him. I didn’t get angry. I simply reminded him, ‘No matter what you do, I won’t stop caring.’ This was tested time and again. But slowly, over time, the anger dissipated and trust was built. Nothing he did or said was going to change the fact that he was valued, cared for, and fought for. By the end of the year, he got the message. His heart had softened. He knew he mattered. Love won.
Jesus is our ultimate example of brave love. When someone lashed out, He forgave. When people took His life, He rose again, and reached out to a world that had rejected Him. Why? Because no matter what we do, our value never changes. We are valuable because He says so. We are still worth sacrificing for.
And so is that person who hurt you.
We encounter people every day who are desperate to know that someone, somewhere, sees them and cares enough to move towards them, even in their brokenness.
‘Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.’
1 Corinthians 13:7 (NLT)
So let’s shake off the shackles of fear and run towards those who need to know that they’re worth fighting for. Will you be brave?
Love is always worth it.
PROMPT: If you have been hurt by those you’ve reached out to, or if you feel like your effort to love someone has brought no breakthrough, bring it to the Father. Ask Him to heal those bruised and weary places. Invite Him to replace the pain or the fear with a heart so brave that you can love like He does—no matter what.
PRAYER: Father, you came to a world that rejected you, and you loved it anyway—with everything. Your love isn’t one that moves away, gives up, shuts up, or shuts down. Help me to love like that too. I pray for wisdom as You lead me. Strengthen my heart so that I can move towards others with brave love.
Notes:
Quote from The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/954841-nicky-cruz-you-come-near-me-and-i-ll-kill-you. Retrieved 5 March 2022.
Book reference: Silk, Danny (2013). Keep Your Love On. United States: Loving on Purpose.
Image Attribution: Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
