First Love

I have really struggled with extreme feelings of being unloved over the past few months. But the more I think about it,  the more I realize I always have. It's just really rearing it's head these days as I have the surface struggles cleared away. I have a family and friends who love me, yes. But regardless of all the people in my life, whom one would expect to be constant reminders of how much I am loved, i have battled thoughts of being unloveable and unworthy of love almost incessantly. And i make it worse because i have this uncanny ability manage to locate any gaps in every one of those relationships to prove it to myself. And I'm sad to say that I have behaved like i am unloved more often than not. 

Some might say my loved ones need to step it up a notch. Others might say I am just letting my emotions rule me, and perhaps I am.  But God has shown me that it all boils down to this: Deep down, I do not fully believe God's unconditional love for me. 

His Word speaks chapter after chapter of his boundless love and I have no problem believing it for everyone else. But somehow I rationalize the idea that I don't have to believe what I don't understand when it comes to this because i can't see how He can love me so greatly when I don't feel i deserve it. That, my dear one, is my insecurity showing. Insecurity is an obvious sign that we don't believe God's word for ourselves but believe it for everyone else. Insecurity threatens our calling if we don't address it. 

I am a Christian and faith is a must for me. Without it, i am calling the God I speak so fondly of a liar- He is not. Without faith, I become useless and unmoved in His kingdom. I am learning thst faith doesn't require us to see or understand, only to believe what He says. We can't witness to others if we don't believe it and accept it for ourselves first. What we feeli inside will ultimatley make it's way out through our words, actions and treatement of others. 

Don't get me wrong - I believe our emotions have a role. They are not meant to guide us but they can tell us about our own hearts. My own tell me there is a gap in my faith bcause not only do i battle it, I tend to believe it more often than not. I have hope other than Jeaus Christ, and so i can't ignore gaps in my faith. My life apart from Him is more miserable than I can put to words. 

Faith is a gift and a choice. We can ask Him to open our eyes but if we choose not to believe, we have not done our part. Believing is a necessary form of obedience. It does not require our emotions to play along, but for us to obey despite them. Therefore, I have to set out to believe what He says, even when my emotions are dim. 

And yes, it's great when we love one another, and we should. There is a concept called The Five Love Languages, based on a book by Gary Chapman. This concept pretty much calls out that each of feel love in one of five ways. And as true as it is, is not meant to be a form of hope. It's meant to help us understand how various things make us each feel loved, thus it helps us to understand how to better love one another. But people fail, it's inevitable. So what happens when those around us can't or don't show us love in ways we comprehend? If our hope is others-based, we wind up discouraged and lose hope repeatedly. Even if they do everything right, we may not feel loved if we miss the first piece of the puzzle of love - God's love for us. 

But it doesn't have to be that way! God will never fail. We might not always get what we want, but He will never fail to give us the love we need. He will never leave or forsake us. His love isn't built on the premise of what we do, but on who He is. I've heard it a thousand times, but it HAS to sink into my head. I desperately need it to. It starts in my heart and mind with a choice because the proof is far and wide. I vow to choose to believe it repeatedly. 

Are you or have you struggled with this too? Know that God loves me and you. He loved us before we existed. He loved us before we ever even knew of Him. I encourage you, as I am also doing, to practice speaking in faith. Learn His Word in areas of the struggle and use it to combat those thoughts. We have to choose repeatedly to believe Him in all aspects, otherwise we won't be able to love Him properly. As a result, we won't be able to love anyone else as we are called to do because without proper priority in the love chain, we will have major issues in our relationships. This step of faith is crucial to our calling. He commanded us to love Him, then others. But without knowing that we can do so only because He first loved us, we will remain stuck.