Cambodia, April 2019
As we crossed the ocean, I asked my Father to see His beauty and majesty in the form of a whale. It has always been a dream of mine to see a HUGE whale in the ocean. So I prayed, and I waited. I heard Him saying “when the clouds open the sun will shine on it”, on the beauty and majesty I am looking for from Him. The sun started shining through the clouds. I didn’t see anything. I kept scanning the waves, looking hard. The sun was moving where it was shining. It was coming closer and closer, until the sun shined on me. At that moment I heard my Father whisper, YOU are my masterpiece. You are my beauty.
Do you know that we are loved just as we are by THE God, Abba, Father, Yahweh that created the universe? Do you experience that love daily and let it fill you until you’re overflowing? Are you able to believe that He loves you, and not only that He loves you but He loves you unconditionally?
Literally there is NOTHING we can do to make Him love us more or to earn this love. Yet we live in a culture that is driven by accomplishment, achievement, and doing whatever we can to make a name for ourselves. We live in a culture that says if you do this or accomplish that, then you will be worthy of more love. Just keep climbing the ladder and eventually you will be worthy of unconditional love.
THAT IS SO OPPOSITE OF WHAT YAHWEH OFFERS.
He says we can do nothing to earn His love. It is already ours. So all of our attempts to earn it mean that we are believing the lie that we are not yet good enough to be loved fully and unconditionally. It means we are not accepting or receiving the fullness of His GOOD love for us because we don’t believe in it.
This past year on the World Race, I experienced Abba’s heart and love to a whole new depth than I ever have before. So many times and in so many ways He continued to show me His deep love for me and how that love sets me free. He walked me into SO much freedom this year. But it was all based in Him and His love for me.
Now I’m back home and I’m in the middle of a HUGE transition. A transition of cultures, of environments, of relationships, and of pace of life. In all of this transition, the enemy has been fighting hard to pull me back into earning my love.
See, I spent most of my life believing the lie that I needed to earn my love. But about 4 years ago, Abba said enough is enough. He was done watching me hurt because I wasn’t believing in the love I so desperately longed for, and that He so freely gives, but that I was looking for in all the wrong places. He was done letting me believe the lie that I had to earn my love.
He stripped away ALL the lies and I was left with bare bones. I had to start from scratch. But since then He has been instilling His truth, His love, His Son in me. Jesus has been intensely discipling me and molding me into His likeness.
And now I’m realizing He has been preparing for me to come back to the place where I tried to earn love and speak Light into the darkness. No longer will this be a culture, environment, or relationship where we have to earn love. He pulled me out of the darkness to give me the Light of His Son and has sent me back into the darkness with that Light. The only Light that saves. The Light of True Love.
Y’all, if that isn’t redemption I don’t know what is. And as I’m sitting here writing this, I’m reminded of a blog I wrote during my time in Colombia on month 3 of the race. I titled it Light in the Darkness and it literally talks about how God pulled someone out of a dark situation, gave him the Light of Jesus, and sent Him back in to be the Light.
Try and tell me that God doesn’t have a plan to redeem and save the world. Try and tell me that the basis of that plan isn’t His love for His people, for His children. Try and tell me. I won’t believe it. I can’t believe it. Not with what He has shown me and continues to show me.
This blog has been a way of helping me verbally process. I started out writing this blog to share that lately I’ve started believing the lie again that I have to earn my love. The enemy has been fighting hard for me to believe that lie again. And it’s been a lot “easier” for Him because I’m back in the environments, culture, and relationships that I believed that lie the most and for the longest time. I’m going to be honest, it has been a hard battle. And scary at points.
BUT, God is faithful to give us what we need to fight the battle. And just as I’ve been writing this blog He has been reminding me of so many of the times He has shown me a different way. A better way. A way that I get love without doing anything to earn it. A way that I get to experience that love daily and then go give it out to others so they can experience it to. A way that brings light into the darkness and brings His Kingdom to the here and now. A way that brings victory.
Because friends, the battle has already been won. Did you know that? Jesus already defeated death and all that comes with it. All we have to do is take up our armor and live in that victory. No matter our circumstances, His victory does not change. His love does not change. HE does not change. GOD is LOVE.
Do you believe that? Do you believe in His love for you? And do you believe that you don’t have to do anything to earn that love? It is already yours. Let’s fight together every day to believe that and receive that. And more importantly, let’s celebrate EVERY SINGLE time we see and experience God’s love for us. Let’s celebrate the victories Jesus has already walked us through and lean on those when things get hard and scary.
P.S. If you’re reading this and thinking it all sounds great but wondering about the days when it seems too hard to believe, stay tuned for my next blog. I have some thoughts on that.
