Love For

Eler Christofferson has a simple, logical way of thinking about how God can love us unconditionally but also love us for the good we do and are.

Love despite vs. Love for.

Unconditional love is love despite our faults.  Conditional love for is love for our successes.  Love despite vs. love for.  God has both.

The good man rejoices in being loved despite and longs to be loved for.

Love despite is the kind of love we have for inferiors.

Love for is love for peers.  For equals.  Friends and brothers.

The secret is that He wants us to be peers, we have the potential to be peers, but we fall short of being peers just yet.

He loves us despite our falling short and loves us for our halting little steps towards equality.

Elder Christofferson’s insight also clarifies one of the little puzzles of the Proclamation on the Family.

The Proclamation lists a whole bunch of ways that men and women are different.   It says that your sex as a man or a woman is so fundamental that is has been part of you from eternity to eternity.

On a more practical level, it says that men preside and provide, while women  nurture.

Then it says that men and women are equals.  (Well, actually it says “equal partners.”  Well, actually, it says, paraphrasing, “equal partners with respect to helping each other in their sacred responsibilities as men and women.”  But “equals” is how it usually gets shortened and we’ll go with that).  The puzzle is that “equals” basically means “the same” but the Proclamation makes it clear that men and women aren’t the same.

Let’s go back to Elder Christofferson.  “Equals” means “peers.”  “Peers” means “love for.”

Husband and wife are equal partners in that the woman being womanly and fulfilling her responsibilities is what she is supposed to be doing.  She is and should be loved for doing them.  Her role is not a second-best sop for her failure to be a man or whatever.  She is not being loved and embraced in the family despite being a woman.  She is loved for being a woman.

Husband and wife are equal partners in that the man being manly and fulfilling his responsibilities is what he is supposed to be doing.  He is and should be loved for doing them.  His role is not a second-best sop for not being as spiritual as a woman or whatever.  He is not loved despite being a man.  He is loved for being a man.