Showing love to others is much harder than just saying “I love you.” Words are easy. Actions take effort and real love.
Teaching “Show, Don’t Tell”
Next month I am teaching a workshop at the Southwest Washington Writers Conference titled “Unlocking the Secret of ‘Show, Don’t Tell.'” If you’ve attended even one writers conference, you have likely heard that elusive phrase “Show, Don’t Tell.” It can be hard to decifer. Once you understand what it means, you must set about the hard work of doing it. Here are the basics of the concept.
Telling is giving your reader the conclusion you want them to reach. It often, but not always, includes using a form of the verb “to be.”
- Sally is clinically depressed.
- The weather was hot and muggy.
- Her cat was lazy.
- John’s lateness made Sarah angry.
- His anxiety rose to extreme levels.
- My husband loves me.
- Jesus loves you.
Showing is giving your reader details and information that allow them to reach that conclusion themselves―to feel the emotion your telling sentence named―to experience the environment your characters are experiencing.
My Husband Shows Me Love
My husband tells me he loves me every day, and I tell him the same. But if all he ever did was say the words, I wouldn’t be so certain it is true. Instead, he shows me in a thousand little ways.
He gets up before me every morning and makes coffee so it’s ready when I get up. He takes care of our yard, watering plants when temperatures rise into the 90s. When I brought home a plant that was a gift at a writers conference, he had it potted, fertilized, and watered before I got up the next morning. He even lets the feverfew daisies grow like weeds because he knows they are my favorites.
When my car needs an oil change, he gets up even earlier to take it in for the 8:00 a.m. appointment, then comes to my office to switch cars with me so I don’t have to drive his home after work.
If I say, “Oops, that’s the last tissue in that Kleenex box,” really only talking to myself, there will magically be a new box in its place before I have a chance to get one myself. He’s thoughtful like that. Always.
Jesus Shows Us Love
The apostle John wrote, “God is love.” 1 John 4:8. But God didn’t just tell us He is love and that He loves us. Jesus showed His great love for all humankind.
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
1 John 4:9–10.
Jesus left His heavenly home to be born as a human to be living as an example of love for us. His sole purpose was to pay for our sins so that we could be reconciled to Him. He took the punishment we deserve as He hung on the cross, beaten, spit upon, and with a crown of thorns causing blood to pour down into His eyes.
Jesus Calls Us to Love One Another
Speaking to His disciples, Jesus said,
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
John 13:34–35.
Just saying we love others isn’t enough. Quite often we fall far short of the mark in our actions. The apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth and we can read his words today telling us what love is. See 1 Corinthians 13. It’s easy to read it and think to ourselves, “Oh, I love my neighbor.”
But if we stand this popular passage on its head, we see that perhaps we aren’t as loving as we think. I once did exactly that with a poem I titled, “Hate is . . .” It is a stark reminder of just how little we show love to others.
The World Needs Jesus
Spend any time on social media or watching the news cycle and you will see little love. You will witness a great deal of impatience, unkindness, bullying, jealosy, abuse, disrespect, selfishness, anger, indignation, unforgiveness, and self-righteousness. Even among those who profess to be Christians.
It breaks my heart. I have a mind to avoid it all and focus on the love I see and experience in my own little corner of the world. But then I remember the world needs the love of Jesus to combat the hatred. The world needs mercy and grace and kindness and love. The world needs to not just be told these things with words but be shown with actions what love is.
The world needs Christians to love our neighbors and our enemies (or those we perceive to be enemies, though in reality they are not).
So what will you do today to show love? The world needs you to.
Closing Prayer for Love
Heavenly Father, Help each person reading this to show love to their neighbors and their enemies. Help us all to tell others about how You showed Your love for all of us, Jesus, through Your atoning death on the cross. You died and rose again that we might experience Your great mercy. Show us how we can tangibly share that mercy with those You put in our path today. In Jesus’s name, amen.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In