Here's my Lenten reflection on the hidden motives behind our kindness and the difficult freedom of accepting that love cannot be earned.

Lent has a way of making us ask questions we might rather avoid. It asks us to give something up, to examine our motives, to sit in the quiet spaces we usually fill with noise. And this year, one question keeps returning for me:

Am I truly loving people — or am I just trying to earn their love?

I think about the lengths I sometimes go to for certain people. The extra effort. The carefully chosen words. Anticipating their needs before they ask. On the surface, it looks generous. It even feels generous. Most of the time I believe it is, when I examine it. But when I look honestly at my own heart, I sometimes see something less pure. I see how easily my “love” can become effort. Performance. Positioning. There are people I know who do not particularly like me. Some I don’t especially enjoy either. And yet I feel something come over me — a determination to win them over. To soften them. To change their hearts and minds. So I offer help. Extend invitations. Show up generously. I tell myself this is Christlike love. I tell myself I am loving my enemies. But if I am honest, there is often another voice underneath: If I do enough, maybe they will choose me. If I am useful enough, maybe I will belong. If I am good enough, maybe I will be seen. This year, Lent is not letting that voice stay hidden. So I sit with the harder question: If I knew I would receive nothing in return — no praise, no validation, no reassurance — would I still show up the same way? Mostly yes, but truly, sometime no. If I earn love, I'll be happier. If I earn admiration, I deserve it. If I earn belonging, I've won. But love that must be earned is not love at all. Why is it so hard to be at peace accepting God’s pure love? Why does it feel like it’s not enough?

Many of us learned early that love had conditions: be helpful, be impressive, be indispensable, be easy, be more. So we spend our lives trying to become worthy of affection rather than simply receiving it. I sometimes feel like I’ve squandered my whole life chasing love.

But the love Lent points us toward cannot be earned. It can only be received. And when we begin to believe we are already loved without performance, something changes. We start to love without bargaining. We serve without needing applause. We give without quietly keeping receipts.

This Lenten season, I am asking God to purify my motives — to teach me how to love without trying to secure something in return.

Because the more I sit with the question that began this reflection, the more I realize how easily love can become something else — a quiet attempt to secure approval, belonging, or reassurance. And perhaps the deeper work of Lent is learning to let that go. To stop trying to earn what has already been given. To trust that being loved does not depend on how well we perform. And from that place, to return to the original question — not with certainty, but with honesty: Am I loving people … or am I still trying to earn love from them? As always, we are works in progress.