What is love? In the spirit of an age steeped in self-interest, we see love in terms of what we can gain from others. We imagine ourselves as helplessly “falling” in and out of love. What we understand about the motive, energy, and goal of love is murky at best. But guided by the narrative in the book of Ruth, Paul Miller holds up the pearl of hesed for us to marvel at in A Loving Life: In a World of Broken Relationships. This hesed is “one-way love. Love without an exit strategy” (24).
Miller, executive director of seeJesus and author of the bestselling book A Praying Life, reaps thoughtful cultural critique from this ancient story. What does a 3,000-year-old story about a couple of widows and an aging landowner teach us about love in 2014? A lot.
Who Doesn’t Need to Read This Book?
Often when we read a book different people come to our minds. Specifically, we think of other people we believe need to read it. A Loving Life is unique—as Miller takes you back to the dusty road between Moab and Bethlehem, you imagine yourself as Naomi or Ruth (or both) and you imagine others in your life who can also relate. Who among us has not cried like Naomi, “The hand of the LORD has gone out against me” (Ruth 1:13)? And who among us has not walked alongside someone who is grieving, clinging to them (Ruth 1:14)? Miller argues that only hesed love can give you hope when you feel God’s hand is against you and can strengthen your hands to love others.
A Loving Life: In a World of Broken Relationships
Paul Miller
A Loving Life dismantles our modern ideas about love by using examples from American pop culture. Miller senses the age in which we live reflects the nightmare in Judges 21:25, where “everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” We have “inhaled the spirit of the age . . . chasing feelings and desires” (12). If the feeling is gone, then love must be gone, too. Miller rebuilds a vision for love that is firmly rooted in the gospel.
The book of Ruth is an ideal narrative for our post-Christian world, where breaking covenants—not enduring in love—is the new norm. Ruth offers a template for love that understands both the craziness of our modern world and a way forward. (14)
Love energized by the gospel is counter-cultural: “Death is at the center of love. It happened to Jesus. It happened to us” (11). Miller wants readers to understand God has given us his Word so that our thinking about love can be transformed. And, like Naomi, all of us are on a journey “regardless of whether the journey is characterized by self or love” (12). Who wouldn’t want to leave the land of famine for the feast?
Hothouse of Suffering
I particularly appreciated Miller’s treatment of suffering. Too often books gloss over the reality of suffering and rally the reader to “just keep your chin up.” But how do you keep your chin up when you are face-planted in the midst of pain? A Godward view of suffering nurtures gritty faith. Miller gives a helpful explanation of the biblical idea of lament:
A lament grieves that the world is unbalanced. It grieves at the gap between reality and God’s promise. It believes in a God who is there, who can act in time and space. It doesn’t drift into cynicism or unbelief, but engages God passionately with what’s wrong. (31)
Many people will be at once relieved and intrigued by this section. We don’t often hear this: “Suffering is a crucible for love. We don’t learn how to love anywhere else. Don’t misunderstand; suffering doesn’t create love, but it is a hothouse where love can emerge” (19).
Naomi loses her family and her livelihood and has no qualms about letting everyone know she is grieving. How does God treat this bitter widow? Miller points out details from the story that illumine God’s character. “How does God respond to [Naomi’s] accusations? In the context of the whole book of Ruth, Ruth’s love is God’s response to Naomi’s lament” (29). Let that one brew in your heart.
Miller is quick to point out the hand of God as seen throughout the story. He also connects the dots between the sovereignty of God and implications as we try to love others: “I am a complete idiot to do hesed love without a loving God orchestrating life,” he writes. “But if an unseen hand is shaping the day, then the day becomes an adventure.”
Since Jeremiah 31:3 is true (“I have loved you with an everlasting love [hesed]; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you”), then there may not be a greater adventure than waking up each day to back-breaking, gleaning work for the sake of someone else. Miller describes how we can have hope for ourselves and for others because “the person of Jesus defines life for us, allowing us not to be locked in by our circumstances.”
God Melts the Cranky Hearts of Real People
Governed by the preferences of our inflated egos, our relationships are characterized by moodiness, hyper-sensitivity, passivity, and apathy toward commitment. But hesed love sends our pet peeves packing. Miller insists the only place we can find the energy to practice hesed is in God, who showed us his “love without an exit strategy” at the cross. As the apostle John put it, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).
Throughout A Loving Life we read examples of people from Miller’s life who both practice hesed and receive hesed. In these illustrations you might recognize yourself, your loved ones, and the people you struggle to love. There are a few places where Miller’s dialogues from counseling situations lacked context, but this concern certainly doesn’t detract from the book’s value. I’m eager to recommend it and keep it nearby for frequent rereads.
