We all want to receive agape love but grimace when we are asked to give it.

Agape love, by nature, is unconditional and self-emptying. The other varieties of love offer more reciprocity. Storge love, which is parental love, costs much upfront but is paid in dividends later and throughout.  Eros love, which is romantic love, pays upfront and shows its costs more honestly along the way. Phileo love, which is friendship love, typically stays in the middle range of cost and benefit.

Not so agape love. It is costly and quiet. It absorbs an insane amount of costs and takes much under the chin.  It cannot flow out where it has not flowed in, and it can only flow in from One source: the wellspring of life, Jesus Christ who defined agape love.

The older I get, the more in awe of agape love I am becoming and the more it is being asked of me by my Master. It is not getting easier to give. Every time it is required of me, I find myself back at the Cross trying to receive what I am required to give.

When someone once asked one of my writing heroes Madeline L’Engle if her faith sustained and influenced her writing, she replied that her writing influenced and sustained her faith. I find myself in the same place nearly every week, writing to remind myself of what I believe and massage it into my life and heart.

Agape Agony

Agape sounds so lovely,
But it feels like agony.
A costly, emptying love
Led its author to the tree. 

To love, to pour, to spend
To be left wanting in reply
Tests the strength of love,
Begs a source Most High.  

My attempts are alloyed,
Tainted, stained, impure.
The sacrifices I’ve made
Make me love you more

What I do in fits and starts,
You did always, all the way.
The costs tempting me to run
Are those that made you stay.

I empathize with Peter’s
“We have left all for you.”
Like you are your rewards:
Other through and through.

Loneliness as wage for love,
Less, not more security.
After decades of service,
You are our only surety.

We’ll walk the wilderness,
Trust you in a land unsown.
Our one great reward will be
To still be called your own. 

We will not begrudge you
Bruises, bumps, and storms.
Each complicating curve
Us into your image forms.

The plan that perplexes us
Before you is perfectly plain.
For you will have your bride
Without a blemish or stain. 

Then, now, and tomorrow,
Thrice worthy you will be!
We only ask continually
To have thrice more of thee!