4 Questions to Ask When Love Feels Wonky

Confession: My college-age self used to read the “Love Chapter” in 1 Corinthians 13 like a scorecard. You know the verses: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud… Love never fails…” As I read, I’d evaluate whether my current person of interest fits those descriptions.

Please tell me that you can relate? I mean, we all long to be loved, chosen, and seen. The way we relate to others often stems from these longings. Yet, hard truth alert: The Greatest Commandment isn’t to be loved. We know that we’re called to love God and others, but our self-focused longings (and scorecards) can distract us from doing that.

I’m still practicing this whole love thing. But one thing I’m clear on is that when love feels hard or gets wonky (because it does), I’ve probably lost sight of loving God and loving others first.

Our God is a God of order. We read in Genesis 1 that God separated the light from the dark. He called dry land “earth” and a gathering of water “sea.” He separated day from night and established seasons as rhythms for how we live our days. We see His intentional order everywhere around us.

So it makes sense, then, that God has also established a heavenly order for love. Here is His divine sequence for how love works best:

1. God loves us and asks us to love Him with all our whole everything.

2. When we do that, we are filled with Love Himself.

3. Then He empowers us to love others, from and through Him.

God’s divine order is to attach and align our hearts to Him first, so that our interactions with others are also aligned with Him. This is His plan for love.

So when love gets wonky, we can revisit His design by asking ourselves four questions:

1 | Am I showing up loved?

“But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:8, 10)

The truth that we are deeply loved by Him is our beginning. It’s what we stand on. God is love (1 John 4:8) and loves us without condition or requirement. Author Jerry Bridges said, “God’s unfailing love for us is an objective fact affirmed over and over in the Scriptures. It is true whether we believe it or not… It originates in the very nature of God, who is love, and it flows to us through our union with His beloved Son.”

Once we believe that God loves us, how we receive His love is the foundation from which we live. It’s how we enter into our relationships. It’s how we show up.

Heart Checks:

1. Do I believe that God loves me as I am, wherever I am?

2. What other beliefs do I carry that might take away from the truth that I am fully and deeply loved?

3. Do I live fully loved in every room I walk into?

Practical ways we receive His love:

I. Meditate on these truths:

1. “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” (Jeremiah 31:3)

2. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

3. “The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”(Zephaniah 3:17)

II. Write them out and place them where you’ll see them often. Memorize them.

2 | Am I choosing to love God?

So he answered and said, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’ ” (Luke 10:27)

Jesus told us to love God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength (Luke 10:27). We love Him in how we think and with all that is in our hearts, to the very depths of our souls, with the essence of our whole being.

We are loving God when we devote ourselves to knowing His character and attributes, His ways (Psalm 119:15), and obeying His scriptures and commands (John 14:15). He will transform us by renewing our minds (2 Tim 1:7), healing our hearts (Ps 147:3), and speaking to our souls (Ps 138:3).

Heart Checks:

1. Have I offered God my mind?

2. Have I given God my heart?

3. Have I invited Him to meet and search my soul?

Practical ways we love God:

1. Pray and offer God your mind, heart, soul, and strength.

2. Spend time with God regularly.

3. Read your Bible and obey what it says.

4. Listen for Him to speak.

5. Praise and worship God for who He is and all He has done.

3 | Have I invited God to fill me with His love?

“…God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5)

When we choose Jesus, God gives us His Holy Spirit to live IN us. We are God’s vessels. That means, since God IS love, love literally inhabits us (1 Cor 6:19). Love comes to us and then flows out of us as a fruit of the Spirit in us (Galatians 5:22). We can love from His love in us when we know and live from this truth.

Heart Checks:

1. Am I mindful that I am carrying Love with me every day?

2. Have I invited the Holy Spirit into my daily routine?

3. How can I find ways to pause, listen, and make space for God during my days?

Practical Ways to Be Filled with Love:

1. Pray every morning for a fresh filling of His Spirit, to lead and equip you for your day.

2. Abide with and dwell in Him (1 John 4:16).

3. Stay rooted in His love to be filled with His fullness (Eph 3:17-19).

4 | Am I loving others from a filled heart?

“When we know and live from His love, we can love. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect.” (1 John 4:17)

The order matters. We love each other because He loved us first (1 John 4:19). This order appears again in John, where we read “…as I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34). We receive His love and love God, and then we love our neighbors.

Heart Checks:

1. Am I showing up already loved and filled?

2. What is God asking me to do with or through His love?

3. Am I holding or letting go of my own desires in my interactions?

4. Have I served or loved someone with expectations of certain outcomes?

Practical Ways to Love Others:

1. Receive God’s love before you pour out to love others from a filled place.

2. If you’re serving others, spend time with God afterwards to be filled again.

We love better when we first take our hearts to God. From our union and connection with God, we overflow with His love. In all of our relationships and in our comings and goings in all the places He calls us, we’re His love carriers.

We don’t complete each other – God does.

God loves us.

We love God.

Love lives IN us.

And because of those truths, we can love others.

“We love each other because he loved us first.” (1 John 4:19)