The Value of Expecting Nothing in Return
In you have they taken bribes to shed blood; you have taken interest and increase, and you have greedily gained of your neighbors by oppression, and have forgotten me, says the Lord Yahweh. — Ezekiel 22:12
And whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord, and not for men. — Colossians 3:23
Author
Milagros García Klibansky
Summary: Loving, helping, and serving lose their beauty when we expect something in return. Like someone who expressed love despite knowing it would not be reciprocated, we can give without making others indebted to us. Demanding gratitude or insisting that others serve us as we wish can drive them away and make them feel guilty. Everyone has the right to say no; their refusal does not mean they love God any less, and it may conceal pain we could help ease. Christ gave himself completely without expecting anything in return. Let us show that unconditional love and seek to understand the depth of his love.
The film ‘The Orchid Thief,’ starring Nicolas Cage, shows how a man can talk to himself while distorting the reality he is living through. But there is one scene that makes the whole rest of the film worthwhile, in which one twin says something like this to the other:
“The day you confessed your love to …, I was listening, and when you walked away, I saw her making fun of you with some other young people. It’s a good thing you didn’t hear it, because I felt it as though it were directed at me.”
The other replied, “I did hear it, but I had already decided to love her, and I was happy to tell her so, even though she couldn’t give me the same love in return.”
In our lives, we constantly have to do things for others, help others, love others. But when we do these things expecting something in return, they lose their charm.
People in debt flee their creditors instead of drawing near to them, because those creditors become an image in their minds, and that image is unbearable.
The debt is not always monetary. It might be a son whose mother is always demanding that he love her, reminding him at every turn that he owes her for the time she devoted to raising him. It might be a wife who demands gratitude from her husband for being almost his slave.
Think for a moment about how we feel when we do favors for someone and, on the day we need a favor from that person, they say, “No.” And that is without even mentioning the times we ask for a favor already thinking that the person owes us one.
We expect others to serve us the way we want, and when they cannot, we get upset without giving the slightest consideration to their full right to say no. That does not mean they love God any less. Instead, let us find out why that person had to refuse. Perhaps some pain or trouble lies behind their refusal, and we are wasting the opportunity God gives us to help.
Whether we believe it or not, this is a sophisticated way of enslaving someone. Many brothers and sisters feel guilty because they do not know how to say no without seeming fickle and uncaring.
Christ never expected anything in return and gave himself completely. Who says we have to be indebted to the people we love? Love does not expect repayment.
People continue to judge us by our attitudes; let us always show the unconditional love that saved us from spiritual ruin.
“…I pray that, rooted and grounded in love, you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, the length, the height and the depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17–19
Suggested reading: Matthew 18:23–35