I choose love over hate, because the Author of the story’s not done

By David McElroy · June 12, 2016

We all have a natural inclination to hate those we see as our enemies. We hate those who hate us. We hate those who hurt us. We hate those who threaten us.

The righteous indignation of anger leads to burning hate — and it feels so justified. We’re the ones who are right. Everyone else is wrong. It seems so simple.

Hate is easy. Love is staggeringly difficult.

Hate is the default reaction for all of us, me included. It feels so good and so right to burn with rage at certain people, even if we claim principles that teach love.

Love isn’t a default reaction. Instead, it’s a difficult choice, especially at first. But as you continue to make that choice, you change. Your heart softens and gets bigger. Eventually, love seems like the only viable choice — even though you know it will remain difficult as your choice is tested again and again.

If you read or watch news — something I strongly advise you to avoid — you’ll soon be filled with reasons to hate people, both individuals and groups. Everybody has a good justification for their hate.

“They hated us first.”

“Those people have been killing us for generations.”

“My group has always been oppressed and hated.”

All of the justifications will be true on some level. History is full of groups hating each other. Humans have murdered and stolen from each other, almost always blaming the victims or — even worse — saying, “God told us to do that.”

But I choose to love, even if others choose to hate. I choose to love, even if that doesn’t make sense to you. I’m not trying to convince you to adopt my point of view. I’m just explaining my choice.

Hate hurts the person who’s full of hatred. Even if you don’t call it hate — even if you dress it up as righteous — it still hurts you more than anyone else. It warps your ability to think and feel. You see other people as sub-humans who don’t quite deserve what you and your allies deserves.

Worse, hate hardens your heart. Even if you feel softness toward your own kind — your own allies or group or friends who have been hurt — your heart hardens from rage that makes it hard to be reasonable or rational. You see everything through the lens of your rage and hate. You will end up justifying things which you would have never justified before — taking that attitude that those who “do that sort of thing” or who are of another religion or ethnic group, for instance, deserve whatever bad things happen to them.

Second, I believe there is a Creator who isn’t finished writing the story of the human race. I’m not interested right here in what we call this Creator. I simply know beyond doubt that I’ve experienced a Spirit — God, Creator, Supreme Being, whatever your term is — who is absolute love. I’m counting on what I have experienced, not anybody else’s interpretation of what they believe God is.

If you claim to follow Jesus — as I do — you have no way to follow Him and yet also hate other people. He wasn’t vague about it. In the Sermon on the Mount — in which He preached very clearly about morality — He told His followers to “…love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you….”

That isn’t vague. It didn’t come with an asterisk saying, “Love people unless they’re gay — or Muslim or black or unless they’ve hurt you.”

I’m terrible at obeying Jesus about this. I’m not the example to follow, because I’ve failed so many times. But I’m not going to try to justify the times I’ve failed or seek to create an exception that justifies hate that might be comfortable for me. I’m just going to keep trying to get better at it — by constantly making better choices.

I believe that the Author of life — the Creator of everything — is going to perfect us at some point. I don’t believe that where we are in history is the end. I believe we’re going to learn to love each other and that everything will be peaceful. I don’t expect that anytime soon, but I expect that to happen by the end of the story.

So because I believe hating others damages myself and because I believe a Creator wants me to love in ways that aren’t natural to me, I choose to love.

I don’t pretend that’s always an easy choice. Sometimes you have to separate yourself from people or from information or from certain influences. If those things trigger hate and rage in you, maybe they’re not good for you. Maybe you’ll see the world differently without those things in your life. Maybe if you see the world in a different way, love will seem like the only reasonable choice to make. Maybe.

I can’t make you see the world as I do. That’s hard for me to accept, because I feel as though I should be able to make you see things my way — and you’d surely agree with me.

But I can’t do that.

I can just tell you this is the choice I’m making for myself. I’m betting that love is going to find the way to win.

Hate is easy. Humans have always done it. Love is difficult, but your choice about whether to experience love or hate changes you and it changes your experience of life.

I choose to love — and I believe that’s what makes life worth living.

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Tyler Barnes will never be a basketball star. He probably peaked as a star high school player in Louisville, Ky. But for the last four years, he’s been a walk-on player for the University of Alabama. He’s a chemical engineering major with lots of academic honors who rides the bench because he loves being part of a team. He sometimes gets into games with a minute or two to go, but only if Alabama has a big lead. This Saturday, it was senior day for Alabama basketball, so it was his last chance to play in Coleman Coliseum. Alabama Coach Nate Oats says that one of the team starter’s came to him an hour before the game started — and fellow senior Alex Reese asked Oats if Barnes could start in his place for this one game. Even though the game was huge for Alabama, which is ranked No. 6 in the country and trying to wrap up an SEC title, Oats agreed. Barnes started and played the first three minutes, grabbing what was only the fourth rebound of his career and missing his only shot. Barnes has a great future as an engineer, but you’ll never again hear from him as a basketball player. For three shining minutes Saturday, though, he was a starter for a top-10 college basketball team — and his parents were in the stands from Kentucky to see it. There’s a lot of ugliness in college basketball right now, but this story makes me happy.

It was five years ago tonight when Lucy first rode in the car with me. She was on her way to her “forever home” with me that night, but she didn’t know it, so she was terrified. It was a much happier and braver girl who took a ride in the car tonight so we could go through a drive-through window and order a hamburger for her — to celebrate five years with me. She had a great time. If she could remember five years ago tonight, she would be proud of how far she’s come, too. If you’d like to know more about Lucy’s journey from scared dog to brave queen of the household, here’s something I wrote after her first year with me. I’m hoping this girl will have many more happy years with me.

I’ve never been attracted to skinny women. There’s nothing wrong with someone who’s naturally thin, but it’s never been my preference. What has shocked me, though, is the judgment I’ve heard from women all through my life — about themselves and others — about who’s “fat.” I concluded long ago that most women in our culture have been brainwashed to believe that skinny is attractive — and that anything other than skinny is ugly. I first assumed that I was the oddball — for preferring women with bigger and heavier bodies — but I’m coming to the conclusion that most men naturally feel this way to one extent or another. I just ran across new research by a couple of Northwestern University psychology professors that shows that women seriously overestimate how much a straight man will be attracted to a skinny woman. In a perfect world, we would all be at a healthy weight, but when it comes to attractiveness, too heavy is more attractive than skinny. At least to me — and to a lot of men, too.

Years ago, I heard a question that seemed very insightful at the time. You’ve probably heard it, too. What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? The question is intended to help you uncover things you really want to do, but which you’re afraid to try — for fear of failure. In an interview today, I heard the great marketing guru Seth Godin give a different point of view. He said the better question is to ask what you would do even if you knew it would fail. That struck me as far more insightful than the original version. We ought to be doing what we know is right, not what will maximize our success or praise from others. There are some battles that are worth fighting even if you believe you’re doomed to failure. Those battles are often for love or important ideas or our children. Some things are simply worth fighting for — and the truth is that you might win anyway. Do the right thing. Take the chance.

The more I understand about myself, about human nature and about the nature of reality, the more I realize I’m a radical by the standards of both Modernism and Postmodernism. Seeing the things which I’m stumbling toward makes me an enemy of many of the core ideas upon which contemporary culture is built. It exposes the culture as a monstrous lie — like a dangerous infection that’s slowly destroying what human were created to be. My “inner observer” has always known that truth was found in the ideas of the Enlightenment, but I’m slowly finding words to explain what has merely been instinct until now. The Enlightenment was humanity’s great leap forward, but shallow and arrogant thinkers for the next two centuries threw away the fruits of that achievement. We can’t go forward as a species until we go back to correct this intellectual and spiritual error — and part of that is acknowledging that our collective attempts to do away with our Creator will always fail.

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