Love Another Way

God's love is constant, it is always present. But, it is us as humans that miss out on it because we deceive ourselves into thinking that we "get it." I thought for a long time growing up that I knew that God loved me. I thought I had really experienced his love, but now I think I was maybe missing it. To say that I understand God's love is not only a lie, but it's an oxymoron. I choose to believe that God's love is not understandable. It isn't something that can't be grasped. And for that reason, I really do think I missed the point of God's love when I was growing up. I thought I understood God's love, which means in reality I was probably far off from the mark. I was correct in believing that God loved me. I was also correct in believing that He loved me far more than I could ever know. But there was a part of me that subconsciously thought He loved me for all the wrong reasons. 

Because we can't actually physically see, hear, or feel God, it is too easy to compare him to the things we can see, hear, feel, and experience here on earth. So, naturally when you hear that "God loves you," you compare that kind of love to the love you experience from other people in your life. Maybe you compare it to the love your parents have for you, or other family members, a friend, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, or a spouse. And although I'm sure you have experienced love from these people, I really don't think it comes close to the love that God has for you. 

Comparing God's love to the love I knew from other people was just one way that I had it wrong. I also had it wrong in that I think at times I thought there were things I could do to get God to love me more. Maybe if I went to church and got more involved He would love me more. If I could ace that test maybe He would be more proud and love me more. If I read my Bible more, maybe then He would love me more. 

But God can't love us more. If love is unconditional, then it is endless and limitless. God can't love me more, but He already does love me more. He also can't love me less. As a perfectionist, I get so disappointed in myself when I make mistakes and do things wrong. I punish myself for the areas that I fall short, I decide for myself that God should love me less because I'm not really worthy of His love. But if you get anything from reading this tonight let it be this:

God doesn't love you because of what you've done. He loves you because of who He is. 

If He loves based on who He is, then we have no need to worry that His love will ever change, because God never changes. 

With all that being said, I think there are many reasons that we miss out on God's love. 

The first one I already mentioned, is because we think we understand God's love already. Another reason already mentioned is because we think God's love is dependent on the things that we do. But the third reason I'd like to talk about is that our hearts aren't in the right conditions to receive God's love. 

I was actually free-writing when I got the idea for this blog (and yes, I write just because quite often, call me crazy I enjoy it.) I had read a quote from C.S. Lewis's work, The Four Loves.

 “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

My initial thought when reading this was to once again conceptualize this through my experiences with love. Then a lightbulb went off and I realized that vulnerability is one thing that makes God's love so difficult to really grasp. The God of the entire universe, the Creator of the whole world, the most powerful and one true God has become vulnerable in loving you, and giving you the choice to love him back. Woah... Really really think about that... God could do whatever the heck He wants, and He chooses to love me as I am, even on my worst days when the last thing I really feel like doing is showing my love for him back. 

Something even crazier, when I was reading these words from C.S. Lewis, I had music on in the background and these are the words that were repeating, 

"It's not enough, it's not enough just to say that you're okay. I need your hurt, I need your pain, it's not love any other way." -Any Other Way, Tenth Avenue North

In the same way that God's love for us is so genuinely vulnerable, we have to come before him, with our hearts in the right condition: genuinely vulnerable. 

If you can't come before God and be completely real with the state of being your heart is in, you're missing out on his love. I've missed out on experiencing God's love a countless number of times because I build up my walls, tell myself that I'm fine, and come before God telling him that I'm alright. There's a part of me that for some reason thinks that if I come before God as "fixed" as I can possibly be, that's what He really wants to see. But that conception is wrong. God wants my broken heart. God wants to see me completely vulnerable and surrendered to him. 

Open yourself up to experience God's love in even more mysterious ways than you thought possible. 

"So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

 -Ephesians 3:17-19