Love's Abyss

Part of the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin, a natural phenomenon with a touch of mystery, and the question of what to do when it seems like love isn't working.

This episode is the ninth installment in a ten-part series on learning to love with all our heart, part of a broader goal this year to study the greatest commandments – to love the Lord (and our neighbor) with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.  In every account of the gospels, the command to love always begins with the heart… and today, we are going to look at why it is so important to love with all your heart, not just the parts you feel like offering.

"Remember, you are loved, so go, love better!"

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Transcript

The Brule River is a scenic river that flows through northern Wisconsin and northeastern Minnesota where it eventually feeds into the aptly named Lake Superior.  At a little over 52 miles long, the Brule River forms part of the boundary between Wisconsin and Minnesota – doing its part to contribute to the squiggly border between the two states that has vexed young geography students since the earliest days of the U.S. expansion west.  Children in states like Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado will never know the pain of attempting to outline your home state when the edge is dotted with archipelagos and rivers.

The Brule River meanders along its course, picking up pace as it adds tributaries and the water from various lakes to its volume, until, just upstream of Lake Superior the river enters Minnesota and specifically, the Judge C.R. Magney state park.  So, if you are ever in Minnesota during one of the beautiful Minnesota summer months, you can park your car, get out amongst the forested hiking trails of Magney state park and take a leisurely one-mile hike to the most famous part of the Brule River.  They call it, the Devil’s Kettle.

I’m Scott Beyer and this is the Love Better podcast where we explore the truths and lies about love and more importantly how to turn love into a skill – something we can get better at and hone along the way.

This episode is the ninth installment in a ten-part series on learning to love with all our heart, part of a broader goal this year to study the greatest commandments – to love the Lord (and our neighbor) with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.  In every account of the gospels, the command to love always begins with the heart… and today, we are going to look at why it is so important to love with all your heart, not just the parts you feel like offering.

The Devil’s Kettle is half of a split waterfall that occurs during a fairly steep descent of the Brule River on its last mile and half journey towards Lake Superior.  As the river picks up speed, it gets diverted in two directions.  One half looks like a normal waterfall, cascading over the rock face with a fifty-foot drop to the river below… but the other half leads to the Devil’s Kettle.  The Devil’s Kettle is a naturally formed pothole.  Imagine the tire-bursting divot you avoided on your commute this morning, but now expand it twenty feet in diameter and deep enough to swallow a couple of Volkswagens.  That’s the Devil’s Kettle, a massive hole in the ground bored straight through volcanic rock – rhyolite to be specific.  The waters of the Brule River plunge over the edge of hardened volcanic magma and down the gullet of the Devil’s Kettle to disappear into… well, that’s the problem.  Nobody really knows.  That’s the great mystery of the Devil’s Kettle.  The water comes in, but nobody knows where, or if, it comes out.  The waters roar, the chilly mist filters up from the Kettle’s abyss, but what goes down, doesn’t come up.

For decades now, people have thrown logs, sticks, and other sundry floatables into the kettle in hopes of finding where it flows out, but with no luck whatsoever.  At one point someone even wrote their name and phone number on hundreds of ping pong balls with a plea to call if found… nobody ever called, nothing was ever found.  Dye packs, GPS trackers, you name it, someone has probably chucked it into the Devil’s Kettle at some point in hopes of solving the mystery of where the water goes.  Does it enter an underground aquifer or cavern?  Are there subsurface tunnels that deliver the water the rest of the way to Lake Superior?  From fancy theories like hydraulic jumping (a process of the water changing flow rates suddenly) to the superstitious folklore that the pothole serves as a portal to the underworld… which is where the waterfall gets its name - the Devil’s Kettle.  The Kettle has baffled scientists and intrigued adventurers for ages.  Where does all the water go?  Is it just lost?  Is it diverted?  What’s happening to all those items hurled down the falls?

Many relationships are just like the Devil’s Kettle – we stop offering our best because it seems, at least on the surface, like we are pouring our hearts into an abyss.  From parenting toddlers, which at times can feel like an exercise in futility, to the more painful examples of helping a loved one with addiction only to have them relapse or the more global problems of attempting to help the poor, an effort that even led Jesus to state, “you will always have the poor with you”.

From hostile co-workers that spurn your efforts at kindness to rebellious teenagers that continue to defy authority or distance themselves from your love – some relationships can feel like casting ping pong balls down the Devil’s Kettle.  What do we do when it feels like our love is lost on some relationships?  Should we give up?  Despite our genuine intentions and efforts to show kindness and love, it certainly seems like some relationships have impenetrable barriers to connection.  Do we really have to love everyone or are some relationships a waste of our love?  Some relationships feel like an abyss… and that, forgive the pun, can feel abysmal.

Exactly how many times do you offer help only to have your assistance declined? Or how many texts messages of support and friendship do you send before accepting you’ve been ghosted?  How many rejections of the gospel of Jesus is enough rejections to give up trying to reach the lost?  When does love turn into enabling bad behavior of an addict or protecting a wayward child from the consequences that they sorely, but painfully, need to feel?  These are real world questions without easy answers… which is part of why we often avoid talking about the subject.  It seems like the easy answer is just love, love, and more love… but that is an oversimplification that doesn’t address the nuance of complicated situations and relationships.

There are multiple factors to consider in these abyss-like relationships, and thankfully, the Bible doesn’t exist in a vacuum.  As Peter says, God’s “divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence”, and as Paul told Timothy “godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”  The Bible is a practical instruction manual for eternity, but also for this present life, too… so, it is unsurprising when we find that the Scriptures give us multiple instructions when it comes to showing love in a variety of circumstances.  So, let’s look at a few of these major principles to deal with seemingly futile relationships.

Principle #1 Love has nothing to do with the other person.  Your choice to love is not contingent on their behavior.  In the apostle John’s groundbreaking letter on the subject of love, he says, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

God’s love isn’t dependent upon our behavior. God is love.  He remains loving whether we accept that love or reject it.  His character is unphased by our behavior.  He manifests that love in different ways depending upon who He is interacting with – after all, love looks different when you are dealing with an obedient child versus a rebellious one, but He doesn’t stop showing love in either case, He just tailors it to the circumstances.  That’s why we call this podcast the Love Better podcast – we never stop showing love, but we want to get better at showing love the right way in each situation we are in because that’s what God does.  His love is a constant and it never ceases.  Even as we were crucifying Him, Jesus cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Real love keeps flowing downriver no matter what is downstream.  If we offer love when there is something in it for us, and then withhold it when we believe it won’t bear us benefits… that’s not love, that’s manipulation.

Which brings us to the second principle – love and trust are not the same things.  We’ve talked about this before on the podcast – especially in the episode “Unequal Love”, but it is worth reiterating love isn’t the same as trust.  In John’s account of Jesus’ life, John makes a fascinating observation about Jesus and His love of people versus His trust of people.  In John chapter 2 it says,

“ Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs that He was doing. But Jesus on His part did not entrust Himself to them, because He knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for He himself knew what was in man.”

You can’t argue that Jesus doesn’t love people because He died for all of us – you aren’t going to love better than Him… but Jesus who loved people also didn’t always trust people because Jesus wasn’t naïve.

Sometimes, we trust people we shouldn’t.  Love is meant to be independent of trust.  Trust is the act of offering something to another person to take care of.  There are some people I should love, but not trust with my car keys or my bank account or my schedule or my self-esteem or my emotional health.  Don’t offer someone you don’t trust something you aren’t willing to sacrifice.

Lots of people throw things into the Devil’s Kettle.  Sticks, stones, the occasional coin, and so many ping pong balls (seriously, people love throwing ping pong balls in that thing!)… but you don’t see people throwing their car keys in there.

In Luke 6:35, Jesus says, “love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.” (Luke 6:35)

You notice that – you can love your enemies, but understand that when you help, you need to lend expecting nothing in return.  If you expect to lose whatever you offer, whether it be money, time, or emotional energy, you won’t be upset when those things are gone.  You can be a cheerful giver because you gave those things by choice and weren’t manipulated into giving something you weren’t willing to lose.  Sure, your love cost you something, but you chose the cost.

It is the difference between giving and being swindled.  Don’t trust other people, especially people who lack the maturity or are untrustworthy for other reasons, to decide.  Love is a sacrifice, but you choose, not them.

Don’t give until you resent it.  Don’t text until you feel abused.  Don’t be gaslighted into enabling bad behavior, and don’t get conned into offering something you will regret.  Take control of your love.  Be in the driver seat… and when you do that, you can love everyone.  The insatiable toddler who always wants “More!” gets what you decide is healthy, the addict in the family is shown mercy, but not drug money, and the cold-shouldered in-law can be bombarded with kindness without being given the keys to your self-esteem.

Which brings us to the third principle – Love is never truly wasted.  Love is part of being the light of the world.  God is love and our light should reflect His character so that He is glorified.  That’s what Jesus means when He says, “You are the light of the world.  A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.”

Light is always a good thing, even if it feels like it is wasted on some people.  Feeling like it is wasted and actually being wasted are two different things.  In Ecclesiastes 11:1, Solomon says, “Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.”.  When Solomon says this, he is probably referring to the reality that all business ventures involve risk, like shipping grain across the ocean, all the most profitable ventures require patience to receive return on your investment… and generosity and love are the same way.  In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul reminds us that love is the secret sauce to life, without it, all other endeavours become useless.

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 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. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)

Without love, knowledge, eloquence, charisma, power, faith, and sacrifice become worthless.  With love, even the smallest acts of kindness, like a cup of cold water, can have eternal implications.

You don’t know what impact your life is making, it might seem like you are wasting your love on people, but that doesn’t mean you are.  In some ways, biblical love is an act of faith, too.  Faith in the God that is love and rewards it.  Even the Devil’s Kettle isn’t a true abyss – scientists haven’t figured out how or where, but they’ve measured the water above the falls, and the water downstream and it turns out the water that is flowing into the Kettle is 100% rejoining the river.  They don’t know where, but they know it is… love is the same way.  I can’t tell you what impact your love will have, but I can guarantee you that it will… if not now, certainly downstream.  God sees your effort and He will reward you.  Even if you have to wait for your treasures in heaven, that’s a pretty good return on investment for the bread you are casting on many waters now.  Even if it takes many days, you will find it was worth the wait.

The Devil’s Kettle disintegrates every buoyant bauble caught in its maelstrom… but the water keeps flowing.  May your love be the same.

Learn to love better – learn to navigate love’s waterfalls.

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And until next time, “Remember, you are loved, so go… love better.”