Love is a Battlefield

Pat Benatar once sang "Love is a Battlefield." That's a truth that anyone with any human relationships can easily relate to. And this is true for all kinds of relationships, from platonic friendships to family ties to romantic relationships. Love is indeed a battlefield, but I don't think we recognize how true those words really are.

Relationships are tough for a variety of reasons, but mostly because of one major reason: Satan is the god of this world, and the world is under his dominion. After the Fall, humanity was under a curse, the curse of sin. And this curse of sin frustrates the way of peace and harmony that the world was meant to function in. For that reason, loving someone is hard. It's a battle, a battle against sin, Satan, sickness, painful circumstances, bad habits, disease, hurt, and wrong done to you.

It's interesting to notice, however, that when we think of the fight of love, we imagine it being against the things "out there." Sure we see love as a battlefield, but we see it as fight against things done to us, circumstances set against our will, and the sin of other people. And that's often true. I think that's what Pat Benatar had in mind in her song. Imagine all the teenage "Romeos and Juliets" out there standing tall against parental pressure or other situations that keep them from being happy together (insert generic RomCom or Taylor Swift song). But what's more certain is that what stands in the way of healthy relationships with other people is the curse found within us. It's the sin, selfishness, and ego inside our own hearts that that provides the most difficulty to loving each other well. And that's the reality that we are far too quick to forget.

What keeps us from loving well are the dark passions and desires of our own heart. More times than you and I can count, if we are honest, we have caused devastation to someone else because of our own selfishness. We want to be vindicated, proven valuable, and have our own pleasures provided for. So we manipulate, maneuver, and control others until we get what we want. In so doing, we put ourselves first, and what's so scary is how easy it is to do and justify. Without noticing, the whole thing has come undone.

Most of us, at some level, recognize this. The question, then, is how do we deal with it? What do we do about it? How do we crucify our selfishness? Well the answer, I think, is twofold, and really just collapses into one Person. The first step is to realize how and why we manipulate relationships to get what we want. In various ways, our selfishness is always seeking to neutralize our insecurities. This, of course, is personality specific. We are each insecure about different things. The guy who doubts his value might seek a dream girl with an impossible checklist to match, while an insecure mother might control her daughter so as to force her love. The second step is to realize that all of these needs are met in Jesus, and we gain access to that by repenting and trusting in Christ. In Jesus, we have been proven valuable by His death on the cross. In Jesus, we have been loved, and loved perfectly and eternally. The call here is to be satisfied in Christ. And when that happens, we begin to seek to control and hurt others less and less, because we satisfied with God's provision and love. This is the only way to find peace in relationships.

Love is a battlefield...and the battle that needs to be fought is against you. The biggest obstacle in your relationships is you. The biggest hindrance is what you want and what you think you need and what you will do to get it. This comes from a mind set on you, rather than a mind focused towards Christ.

But love is a battlefield...and that battle was already fought and won for you. We would do well to remember that.