We tend to think hate is the most destructive force in the world.
Hate starts wars.
Hate divides families.
Hate scars people for years.
And it does.
But there is a kind of love that can do even more damage than hate ever could.
Because hate doesn’t pretend to be anything else.
Love does.
Hate announces itself. You see it coming. You brace yourself for it.
But destructive love disguises itself as care.
It whispers instead of shouts.
It holds you while it harms you.
It says things like:
“I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“It’s okay for you to change who you were born to be.”
“It’s not really that bad or dangerous, is it?”
This type of love accepts anything and everything. It tolerates behaviors that aren’t healthy and slowly suffocates the very person being tolerated.
It tells people, “You can be anything you want to be,” even though there are some things we were never designed to be.
When people chase what they cannot be, there is always pain, hurt, and destruction somewhere at the end of that road.
And a love that promotes what it should have tried to prevent is a love that is more harmful than hate.
Not all love heals.
Some love controls.
Some love enables.
Some love refuses to tell the truth because truth is uncomfortable.
Some love keeps people small.
Some love is more concerned with comfort rather than the other person’s calling.
And some love tolerates what should be confronted.
It watches someone self-destruct and calls it compassion.
It stays silent while someone drifts and calls it acceptance.
It lowers the standard and calls it kindness.
Tolerance, when it protects what is destroying someone, is not love.
It’s surrender.
Real love doesn’t celebrate what harms you.
Real love doesn’t sit quietly while you walk toward a cliff.
Real love is willing to risk the relationship to save the person.
And that kind of love is rare.
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrong” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8 ESV)Real love tells the truth.
Even when it trembles.
Even when it risks everything.
Even when it knows it may not be received—and may even be mistaken for hate.
Because real love would rather wound you with truth…
Than lose you to a lie.
Hate will wound you once.
But tolerant love will wound you for a lifetime.
phillipbrande.com 