Love Is a Choice

 

The oracle of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi. “I have loved you,” says the LORD. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD. “Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” If Edom says, “We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins,” the LORD of hosts says, “They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called ‘the wicked country,’ and ‘the people with whom the LORD is angry forever.’” Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the LORD beyond the border of Israel!” (Malachi 1:1-5 ESV).

 

So much of the time we believe that love is a feeling. Frank Minirth, Paul Meier, and Robert Hemfelt wrote in Love Is a Choice: “Love is a choice and a decision that determines if it lives on or ends. It is a deliberate act that involves choosing and committing to a person that helps us work through tough times. Love is based on a promise and is represented by our marriage vows. It is not just a feeling, and you are not destined for any relationship other than the one you help create. Love is a choice, not an uncontrollable feeling, and you are in control of how you act in your relationships and how much you push past conflict and challenges.”

 

Our reading today is so counter-intuitive regarding God’s love. It almost appears that God is not acting in a loving way.  This causes a grave mistake on our part. We begin to assume that God’s love should meet our approval instead of the other way around. God’s comment on Esau is confusing in this way. Jacob and Esau were brothers, but for unstated reasons God chose to accept Jacob and reject Esau (cf. Genesis 27). Their father, Isaac, being deceived by Rebekah and Jacob, pronounced a lavish blessing on Jacob but only a limited one on Esau.

 

This is actually a very important lesson about love. Many of us think of love as a feeling that might lead to certain choices. But real love, God’s kind of love, is a choice that leads to feelings. These verses in Malachi are saying that God made a loving choice of Jacob (through no merit on Jacob’s part) but not of Esau. Through Jacob, God worked out his plan of salvation that led to Jesus. We might never know the reason for that choice, but we do know that God’s love is not led by feelings. We also know that God is motivated by the best “good” that can be (cf. Romans 8:28). This ought to lead us to love more, not less.  We don’t need to like someone to love them.