I had the opportunity to go to the last day of the Passion
conference in Atlanta on Thursday. It
was very nostalgic and brought back fond memories of past Passion
conferences. Especially Passion 2008, it
was the encounter I had with the Lord in the Gwinnett Center that got me on the
track that eventually led me to go on the World Race. This Thursday was refreshing because in the
Georgia Dome, God showed up and spoke to me more clearly than He had in weeks.
My mind began going to the past month, and how I had slowly
degraded from being at peace with my transition to North Carolina and being at
a place of trust where I didn’t need all the answers. To allowing my mind to plot, scheme and expect
things out of my move that God never promised.
I had come into a place of anxiety and fear. And in that realization God said,
“Your first
responsibility is to let me love you.�
And the word of God did its thing. It cut me, through my bone and marrow to my
heart. I stopped singing and stood there
in a daze.
It makes sense. We
live our lives in response to a God that initiates everything with us.
·
We love because He first loved us.
·
We’re able to be generous because he was first
generous with us.
·
We repent because we were forgiven before we
even knew we sinned.
·
We comfort others with the comfort that’s been
given to us.
I could go on…
But why is it so hard to simply receive God’s love? I’ve spent some time processing this question. And I want to share what I’ve
found. Because I’m pretty sure I might
share some of the same struggles with some of you.
1. I’m not at rest.
Have you ever seen two lovers in each
others arms, being affectionate with each other, and one of them is stressed
out? Or a father, cuddling with his
daughter, but she’s so afraid that she’s not even paying attention. Maybe you have. My point isn’t that it doesn’t happen my
point is that it doesn’t belong. Stress
and anxiety cause us to toil, and fear causes us to be in control of
everything. And none of those things
allows us to rest. And in my experience,
we can only receive love when we’re at a place of rest.
2. I don’t think I deserve it.
If I’m honest, the more I understand grace
the less I like it. Mostly because I
hate the idea that I’m treated better then I deserve. In Danny Silk’s book “Loving
our Kids on Purpose� he talks about being a representation of God by being a
safe place for your kids to fail. He
says the goal is when your child screws up or makes a mistake they should be
able to say, “I want to get in your lap when I have sinned, because they are
the safest place I have on earth. There
is no one who has demonstrated love like you have to me.� As soon as I read that I realized that I don’t
do that. And my immediate first question
was, “Why don’t I find God to be a safe place?�
Because there are definite times when I don’t feel loved by God because
I feel like I don’t deserve love by God.
3. God’s character doesn’t reflect love.
AW Tozer wrote in ‘The Knowledge of the
Holy’, “The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is
the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us.�
In my last point I came to the conclusion
that I didn’t feel that God was a safe place.
In part because I didn’t feel like I deserved love, also in part because
my view of God is not of a loving father at times.
Mostly because I have taken things I’ve seen to be true in the world and
reflected them on God…big mistake. But
also because I take what makes sense to me, like how I need to earn love, and
force my view of God to fit into that.
So what am I doing about it? Well so far, I’m waking up and thanking God
for loving me. I lay there and take
stock of the proof in my life that God loves me. Gratitude helps when you’re trying to accept
love. What about you? Do you have anything to add to my list that I
didn’t think of? I’d like to hear it.
