Don’t Believe the Lie: There’s Always Enough Love to Go Around

Today I’m starting a new series: don’t believe the lie. There’s a lot of lies circulating in our culture today and we need to be on guard against them if we want to live in the truth inside us. The first lie I’m covering is the idea of scarcity which is so prevalent in our world today. Scarcity says that our resources are limited and need to be restricted if they’re going to survive. Regardless of what resource is in discussion, a view of scarcity is never the right mindset to have. This is especially true of the resources inside us and that is where I’ll begin our conversation today - with the love we have for others.

Who is deserving of my love?

Have you ever run this mathematical-like equation to quantify who is most deserving of your love today? We think things like ‘this person has a good job they’re fine they don’t need my help’, or ‘this person has a loving family they’re good’. We make excuses as to why someone does not need our care and support. We think the person struggling with a little thing doesn’t require attention because there are so many other people struggling with far worse out there. And whether you actually make efforts to help those other people in dire struggles or not, you’re satisfied to use them as a reason for disqualifying the needs of the other people you see throughout your day – those who seem less deserving of help in comparison. This thinking is wrong for a couple of reasons. For one, there’s always enough love to go around and also, we are all in need of the love and support of others–there are no exceptions to this.

There’s always more love to give

I’m going to say something completely contrary to the prevailing idea of scarcity– love is an infinite resource. There’s always more love to be had, shared, and given away freely. Love is a gift we receive without any special merit of our ours to deserve it. As a gift, it is ours to give and not be stingy with. Just as we received it, through no merit of our own, so too can we give it away without expectation of losing ours or the world running out of it. It came upon us without our earning it and we can trust more like it will come again to replenish us whenever we need more. Love is only limited to us by the measure we give of it. Give lots and there will be more for us to share. Hold dearly onto what you have, being careful not to ‘use up’ any of it, and eventually, it will depart from you just as swiftly as it came to you.

As long as we’re awake and living, love can be shared. There’s never a shortage of it no matter how tirelessly we’re giving it. Rest and sleep recuperate our bodies as we need, and upon waking to a new day our love reserves are filled even greater than the day before if we were generous with it.  Rather it’s your first hour of the day or your last, there’s always something we can give. Only when we buy into scarcity – do we miss out on love. In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl describes the people he witnessed surviving in the WW2 concentration camp he was at.  Now let’s be sure of this first, in a WW2 German concentration camp there was no abundance of physical resources. Nonetheless, those who acted in love, as if there were more resources to be had, were the ones who survived longer because there sharing of love gave them the meaning they needed to fight through another day in that Hell. These men would give their meager piece of bread for the day to another man who needed it more. Similarly, they gave their place on a cargo to another camp, thought to have a higher survival rate, to another man. These men believed that, even in this hellish nightmare, there was always enough love to give. Their giving of themselves in this way, in complete love and service to others, is what actually fueled them to keep fighting on. These men were the ones who recovered from the illnesses going on around the camp, that kept in their hard labor positions of work the longest, and who eventually survived. Those who acted in scarcity, only concerned if they had enough for themselves, fizzled out the quickest. Their mindset of scarcity overtook them and what they were hoarding onto for themselves they lost.

No one is without the need for love.

Consider a moment this human condition of ours we all share. At its core, there is the needs for survival, connection, and purpose. Not a single person is immune to needing these. Rather rich or poor, religious or non-religious, democrat or republican, well-off or in a dire struggle– we all have the same needs and the same concerns over meeting these needs. We all struggle with fear, worry and anxiety to some level. We all desire to feel known, seen, heard, loved, accepted, secure, and safe. These are fundamental needs we have as human beings. No matter what a person’s circumstances look like from the outside, you can rest assured that every one of your fellow neighbors has these needs and needs your help meeting them. To what degree they need does not matter. There is no need small enough that does not require us to step in and share the love we have. All of us need and deserve these things­– and all of us can be filled with the love and support needed to carry them. There is no shortage and therefore no need to quantify and discriminate against who we give ourselves to. We are all in need and we have all been given to, therefore give of yourself generously. Keep your hands open, to receive and pass along the flow of love, and you will never be in want. Close your hands, in hopes to reserve up all the love you have been given for yourself, and you will run out of it.

Give abundantly and never worry if there is enough–love, you will see, always provides.