Love: In Pursuit of Unfair Relationships
“It’s not fair.”
If you have been counseling for any amount of time, you have heard this sentiment. It is one of the most common themes we deal with in counseling relationships (especially marital counseling). But you wouldn’t even have to counsel to be familiar with it, because you have felt it in your own life. It’s the idea that something isn’t right because it’s not equal; there is a lopsidedness to some interaction and an inequity involved. And importantly for counseling, it is often the baseline by which people judge a relationship and decide how to respond.
Culture’s Counterfeit – Love as an Exchange
What makes it especially difficult to clearly understand it all (for those we counsel and for ourselves) is that our culture preaches the importance of fairness or equity. Relationships are meant to be 50/50, give and take, you scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. They are supposed to be about compromise and balance. What this means is that the world sees love as an exchange. Relationships are often simply emotional business deals where love is the currency.
As Christians, often something seems a bit off about the idea of fairness, but we still long for it. We don’t want to give more than we receive. No one is complaining because another person loves them too well. No one comes to our counseling ministry at Lighthouse because they are having trouble dealing with someone who serves and cares for them way too much.
We long for relationships that feel right. We desire a sense of fairness where we are receiving as much as we are giving. And if we are truly honest, we want to receive more than we give. We hate the idea that we do more than another. We hate that we might try harder, serve more, or love better. We long for fairness.
What is dangerous for those we counsel is that this idea of “fairness” becomes the lens through which they both evaluate relationships and determine how they will respond. They act based upon some mythical ledger of deeds, and the minute it seems unbalanced, they are upset and often respond in sin.
Christ’s Life and Teaching – Love as Sacrifice
Jesus understood that the natural, selfish disposition of the heart is to make love an exchange. That is why He said this:
“If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount” (Luke 6:32-34).
Jesus is teaching that “fair” isn’t actually the goal of Christian relationships. Fairness is a false baseline for our interactions. It is a worldly standard that draws our gaze inward rather than upward and outward where it is meant to be. Fairness isn’t really loving at all. It is just our culture’s counterfeit, masquerading as love—selfishness in disguise.
Christian love is different. Jesus continues:
“But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:35-36).
Jesus was teaching that true love necessitates sacrifice. In fact, if there is no pursuit of sacrifice in our love, then it is simply a transaction. This means to pursue a fair relationship is to not pursue a loving one.
Counseling Implications
What does this mean for counseling? We must encourage those we counsel to see that the goal of relationships isn’t fairness but sacrifice. Importantly, this isn’t referring to ignoring injustice. We should hate injustice because the Bible hates injustice. The unfairness this passage speaks about is the personal decisions we make that bring about inequity in our relationships. In other words, we want to make it our goal to love much more than we are loved; to serve much more than we are served. We want our personal relationships to be unequal in the sense that we choose to love so faithfully, perseveringly, and humbly that it is seemingly unfair. What this means is that we fight against injustice in other people’s lives, and yet (in a sense) we pursue injustice in our own.
In the end, this idea of love as sacrifice may not make love any easier for those we counsel, but it will offer a clear understanding of the love they need to strive for. With that more biblical and beautiful picture, they can pursue that love through the grace of the gospel.
Questions for Reflection
- With those you counsel, how has “fairness” hindered true love?
- How might you paint a more biblical and beautiful picture of love for those you are counseling?
- In your own life (and counseling ministry), how might “pursuing unfair relationships” help you to better love those you serve?
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