Love (Or the Lack Thereof) & Depression

The Shipps by Nicholas L. Laning

1 Corinthians 13 (English Standard Version)

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 

2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  

3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.  

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant  

5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  

6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  

7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it     will pass away.  

9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,  

10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.  

11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.  

12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.  

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Nicholas L. Laning

 "Love is a decision."  I cannot count the times I have heard this adage, a half thought out response, wrought from fear of losing a battle against the constant bombardment from movies, television, and music that, "Love is a feeling."  As with most fearfully wrought responses, the pendulum is not swung to find balance.  It is swung fully and completely, never bothering to ask if swinging completely in the opposite direction is any better? There is a decisive, devotional quality to love, and there is also a mysterious, emotional quality to love.  

To say that only one of those qualities of love is like being asked what an apple looks like, and responding, "Apples are round."  Okay, are they not also red, (or yellow or green, depending on the apple)?  Picking one quality to define the whole leads to a warped vision of the truth.  

Another analogy would be to say that a hand is a human.  No, the hand is a PART of the human body.  Without it, the body is not whole.  Yet, you cannot define the whole of the body by one part and come out with a real vision of the human body. 


The words found in the text above were not understood until my depression.  It is easy to say, "Love is a decision," in an attempt cut out or dampen the emotive qualities of love when you feel those emotions freely and easily.  When your struggle is to control your emotions, reign them in, it seems beneficial to grasp for the opposite, perhaps hoping to reach the middle, as it cannot be imagined to not emote.  


WELL YOU CAN!  Your ability to emote is not inevitable.  It can be stripped from you, and then you will see just how ridiculous the idea of love being solely a decision really is.  Without the emotions, without genuine affection, there is no reason to decide to love in the first place.  


This verse above completely blows up the notion of love being a decision.  If we were to look at the text before this one, we would see Paul talking about the different gifts, and their importance, then he says in 12:31 "But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way."  Then he starts above.  Love is essential, and it is not just a decision.   

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

To give all you have away, or to deliver your body up to be burned both take the utmost devotion!  Do they not?  Think about how intense those acts are!  Then Paul tells us that we can do those amazing things, and if we have not love, that we gain nothing!  In that one sentence alone we see that the love he is talking about goes beyond mere devotion.  

This scares me too.  It also gets me excited!  

It scares me because I cannot simply do love.  I cannot simply obey commands and think that enough to be considered loving God, loving others.  My heart must affect.  It must flourish.  Nothing else will do.  I am going to be honest, and say that depression has left me scarred subconsciously.  It has been a battle to encourage my battered and tattered heart to ever be open to feeling ever again, for one cannot hurt if one does not love.  My affection for God and for others is lacking.  This has been the greatest target of my prayers, that the Holy Spirit would do what only He can... soften my stone of a heart.   


It gets me excited because, after seeing the truth, I don't want love to just be a decision!  I understand the devotional quality full well.  When there was not a mote of affection in my heart for anything, not my parents, wife, nature, my self, nor life, I decided to go on loving those I remember loving.  I devoted myself to a God my heart screamed had abandoned me.  Without devotion, my love would have been lost.  Yet, it was not full at all!  I now want my heart to soar again!  I want it to burn!  I want it to flourish in the beauty of God's creation!  I want it full!  I want to love others, yearning to serve them, encourage them!  I want my heart to again beat red and tender within my chest, and that is exactly what God wants!  He wants, no, commands my affection!  He tells us we are to soar!  Our hearts were made for beating!  


So, let us no longer be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal!  Let us have faith, hope, and of course... love!