Guilt
Shame
Unworthiness
Doubt
Worry
Questioned purpose
This is the familiar path. The easy path.
But to walk the hard path? UNHEARD OF. You know… the road marked with:
Forgiveness
Conviction (not condemnation)
Worthiness
Confidence
Faith
Purpose
LOVE
Why is it so easy to say we “love” God but yet we feel so undeserving of His love? Why is it so hard for me to walk a road of true identity but so easy to line my road with lies?
I’ll tell you why. In annoyance, I asked God why I struggled with His love, and this is what I got:
“Your own insecurities tell you that you are not enough, that something needs to be fixed before I can love you in full capacity.”
–Thanks for the honesty, God–
Again, these are LIES.
It’s so hard for us to understand that there is absolutely nothing we can do to earn His love. It was freely GIVEN when He CHOSE to put His son in place of our sins.
“…nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” -Romans 8:39
It’s a hard pill to swallow that until we truly begin to believe that nothing we could ever do in this life could add or take away the amount of love God has for us, we are actually hindering our job as people to love other people well. Sure, you may be able to love to an extent, but until we begin to embrace Jesus’ love for us personally and in its entirety, we can only love people in mediocrity.
–So, Kirsten, you’re saying you’re on a year long mission trip with the main goal in mind of loving people world wide,yet you struggle with knowing the full capacity of His love??–
Yes, absolutely. Day by day He is giving me opportunities to see His love in a new way, a deeper way. He’s showing me how He loves me just like my teammate KP loves the orphans freely. They didn’t do anything to deserve her attention and love. They simply existed and she loves them. He is showing me His love for me in the way He uses my squad to point out my God given talents and characteristics, the ones I couldn’t have ever worked for. They were just woven into my being when He created me. He is even showing me His love for me in the way He paints the most beautiful Haitian sunrises every morning to enjoy. So, yes, understanding His love for me is a process, but day by day through the process, I am learning my worth in Him all while learning more and more what it looks like to love people like Jesus does. Thank goodness He never asked us to have it all together before we came to Him; I would REALLY be in trouble!
So here we are at a crossroad between walking the path of ownership of the complete love of God or walking the path of only partial acceptance of His love. It’s a CHOICE to walk in this complete ownership, and so my prayer is that the Lord continues to open my eyes to the way He loves His his sons and daughters, including myself.
