Love includes Tough Love

A message about Love was preached in my church yesterday evening. But the pastor did not explain what Love is.

But what is actually Love?

We know from the good book the characteristics of Love - "Love is patient, love is kind .. "

It is unfortunate that the world have broadly accepted the Westernized notion of Love as lovey , dovey , hugs and kisses , I forgive your wrongs , you don't have to be responsible for your actions , i will bear all your punishments  and all is forgotten.

I believe this Lovey Dovey Love is not Christian. It is from those drug-filled hippies who preached anti-war, eastern mysticism and universal sex love in the 60s.

Throughout the bible, we see God demonstrated His Love not only in forgiving and sacrificing but also in punishments and reprimands. This is the Father's love.

The good book says, "Spare the rod, spoil the child"

Lots of people, who embraced the Lovey Dovey Love fail to understand why God who is Love , punishes His people. Why God allowed famine , pestilence, wars to ravage His people.

The truth is He punishes them out of love and the desire to correct.

Tough Love - the act of reprimanding and punishing the offender , not out of revenge or anger but out of love and the intention to correct and reform.

As a person in the education field, time and time again i encounter 'Christian' students from Christians family behaving badly in school and colleges. They are indisciplined, disrespectful , rude , disobedient and etc . They may act like angels at home but they behave like devils outside their parents' monitoring.

I believe this is due to the lack of Tough Love being practiced in these Christian families who believe in Lovey, Dovey Love.

It is very sad to note that students of other religions ( especially from the Buddhist background) are behaving much better than those from Christian background.

This is not surprising because most of those children from Christian families are not born again. They never had a personal encounter with God. They just follow what their family practises - go to church , not praying to idol but they are not born again.


A survey done in UK recently found that Tough Love is good for children.

"Children brought up according to "tough love" principles are more successful in life, according to a study. The think tank Demos says a balance of warmth and discipline improved social skills more than an laissez-faire, authoritarian or disengaged upbringing." 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8348938.stm

On the other extreme, some people think Love means only Tough Love - which is totally wrong.