Without accepting and owning God's love for YOU, it will be nearly impossible for you to believe anyone genuinely loves you. You will be quick to guard up, you will look for slip ups, in the back of your mind you will think they will leave too, it's only temporary, they won't stay, they'll end up hurting you too, they just want something, it's conditional, or some other form of foolishness.
Generally these feelings are lies spoken from past experiences in which you have allowed abandonment, hurt, and the past to map out your future because you believe it will always be the same. You will always be hurt, people will always leave, they will always use you, etc(just add whatever your "always" has been)!
Often times what we don't realize is that the root cause of these repeated cycles is in fact us. Without accepting Christ's great, unexplainable, irreplaceable, unmeasurable love for us it is impossible for us to love or be loved!! Why? Because if we deny love Himself we will always reject it. When love tries to enter our lives we don't see it as love because our definitions of love have always been false.
For me, love wasn't consistent. It wasn't affectionate. Often times it was abusive and degrading. It was using and when people got all they wanted they left. So naturally when love showed up, when it knocked on the brick walls of my heart I denied it. When embraced or touched I was so uncomfortable. I still struggle with being loved on. And now at almost 26 years old I ask myself, Why can't I love? Why don't I believe that I am loved? Why can't I believe people love me? And finally, after years of searching, I've finally found the answer. I've finally gotten to the root of the problem. 1. I don't believe God could love a flawed and imperfect person like me! And that...that one belief has held me captive. That one belief, as inaccurate as it is, kept me from the very thing I had been searching and longing for! 2. I didn't love me!
"And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. The second is equally important: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' No other commandment is greater than these."-Mark 12:30-31
You see, in order to love others you must love you. In order to love you, you must love God. The thing about loving God accurately is you must first accept His love for you. If you are missing love, either receiving or giving, it's because of one of two things 1. You aren't allowing God to love you OR 2. You aren't loving you. Love is drawn to those who pursue it. And since God is love we must pursue Him if we want love. I mean real, authentic, unconditional love. I don't know about you but that's what I'm after. I've had enough false love throughout my life. But now that I'm searching, I've have real and authentic love all around me as well. We must learn to let love in. Let God in. Allow Him to love on us so that in turn we can love on us and we give others the liberty to do the same.
Until next time,
Kaitlyn
No comments:
Post a Comment