Valentines Day was last week. Being on the race, holidays don’t feel the same. We know they are happening, but there is just something different about celebrating a holiday in a different country as a missionary. Nothing being normal or constant has become normal to us.
I remember this time last year, I was still seeking for love in all the wrong places…trying to find my worth in the words from a boy, a job, or shallow friendships rather than the words from The King.
This Valentines Day, I can honestly say that I have a completely different view of love.
Just the other day, a good friend of mine mentioned that they had asked Jesus how to love me. I sat there in shock, as I realized I had never heard those words spoken before. No one had ever told me that they had asked the Lord how He wanted them to love me.
Something clicked in my heart and in my head in that moment.
No wonder we never love to the full capacity we were made to. When do we ever go to Him first and ask how to love?
Love is what this life is all about…to love Him and love others as He has loved us.
But so many of us are still confused by what love really is. We don’t know how to really love people or how to let others truly love us. It takes a risk, it takes us laying down our pride and fears of getting hurt or feeling vulnerable.
I never realized that I didn’t know how to love until I came on the race.
Living with six other girls 24/7 will teach you how to love in a whole new way. Living in a community where things always seem to go wrong and you really cannot have any expectations, you learn that you must love people from where they are at. I learned that loving is more than just an emotion or a feeling. It’s an action that God calls us to practice in every moment. It is who God IS….and He is living inside us. Love is a part of who we are. So when are we going to start operating in it.
God has been revealing more and more to me about love. To truly love someone is to tell them the honest truth. To dive in and go deep when our natural tendency is to keep things surface level. To open your heart and be real and vulnerable. It is having open communication when you want to shrink away. It is shining light into the darkness in each others lives and bringing joy and hope when we aren’t strong enough to find it on our own!
We are called to constantly be seeking to LOVE more like HIM!
Romans 5:8
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
He loved us unconditionally. He reaches out and loves us in the midst of our sin-filed lives and beckons us to return to him and receive His love.
Romans 13:8
Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.
Loving each other is fulfilling God’s purpose for our lives. We are all constantly searching for our purpose in this life. When it is laid out right before us…to love God and each other radically. After that, everything else falls into place.
Romans 8:37-39
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 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.
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING can separate us from His love.
No circumstance, situation, sin, relationship…NOTHING. He calls us to love in the same way. Without expectations of one another, but with the purest of motives to simply love deeply.
Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
He gave his life for us. For ME and for YOU. He literally died for you…let that sink in for a moment. I think so many times we take that for granted. We forget that He was the ultimate sacrifice for us when we deserved death. We continuously mess up, fail, and fall short…yet He loves us just the same.
He calls us to love in the same way.
Selfless love.
We are only capable of this because of HE who is within us.
It is beautiful when it clicks and we realize that we have the capacity to love as He loved us. We also have the same capacity to accept love. I remember always pushing people away who truly loved me and running to those who I “thought loved me.” The Devil will try to deceive us in this area because he doesn’t want us to experience the depth and beauty of this life that God has for us.
Will you continue to run away from the love of Christ?
Or will you choose to lay it all down…yes, I mean everything…to experience this incredible love only a life in Him can offer you.
I promise you. It's much better on the other side. I never knew how great it would feel to let people in and allow them to know me, love me, and spur me on to love others in the same way.
I am still learning this as I continue my journey on the race, but one thing I have learned is that…
Love is the key to a more fufilling life….and it is worth it 🙂
