A Daughter's Love

I’ve been taking my son on walks every morning this week and, while doing so, have been listening for God. I don’t have a particular topic for tonight, but I want to share what I’ve been primarily hearing on these walks. Last week, I talked about God’s love. Today, after much processing of what God has been showing me, I want to talk more about the nature of God’s love and where I need to apply it for myself and in my relationships. Our love is often attached to conditions, in order to love well, we need to stop loving like people and start loving like God. For me, that began with understanding the way God loves me.

My whole life, the enemy has always managed to get me in one area, and sometimes even managed to convince me that it would be a sin not to believe him. He told me that I’m not good enough, and, in a way, he’s right, which is why that particular lie was so hard to fight. I didn’t have an arsenal of defense because, really, I could never do anything to be good enough for anything or anyone. The part that he left out though, was a very vital game changer.

I’m nothing on my own. With God, I’m everything.

I wrote last week that God’s love is separate from our spiritual GPA, and that’s what I’m putting into practice. It’s important to remember that even before I became a Christian, I was loved by God, created by him for his purpose and for his delight. By being who I am I bring joy to God. I don’t need to be different from what I am and I don’t need to be perfect. I just need to be me and God delights in his creation. That’s what he’s been telling me this week and it’s what I’ve needed to learn how to believe my whole life. Me choosing God and choosing the way I live my life, brings me joy, makes my life better, but it doesn’t change how God feels about me. I have been told that I am a lot of terrible things and Satan used those to make me believe that the things I did or the way people perceived me removed my worth. When I’m worried about what anyone else says or the enemy is telling me what I should think, I need to have the strength to ask God his opinion. I will weigh myself by his standards which will always result in me being loved, and if I happen to be doing something wrong, he will tell me and I will correct it, but I never have to wonder what my worth is or if someone else’s opinion may be more correct than God’s.

Seeing myself through God’s eyes has been life-changing, Likewise, I have thinking about seeing other people through God’s eyes. They are always loved no matter what they are doing. They may need truth and they may need correction, but always with gentleness which will facilitate their humility and repentance. I am not more loved by God because of the choices I have made. I need to love just as I am loved, according to his standard. There are still people I need to forgive and relationships to mend, but it’s a process I have at least begun. It’s not easy to love perfectly, but we can do our best and we have a good teacher.

This unconditional love thing is also the model that God gives to us for marriage, parenting, friendship, and really every other possible relationship. He sets the standard for how we love others, we don't. We love our kids no matter what they do and we should always find a way to show that love even when we are frustrated or disappointed or are having to discipline. The way we treat our kids, our spouse, and everyone else should always convey love no matter what else is there as well. The difference when someone is close to us is that we have the ability to know how they would recognize that love best, even in the midst of negative emotions, and that ability becomes a responsibility to show love the best way possible.

The most complete way I have experience having to put my ability to love into practice is in my marriage. When I met my husband I was 16 and never had a real boyfriend before. I had some “relationships” in middle school, I had been on a couple of dates in the year prior, but the majority of my expectations came from TV and movies. Needless to say, my expectations were unreasonable. And worse, I didn’t know how to articulate what I wanted. I just wanted things to be what I wanted and I didn’t want to have to ask for them. So most of the time, they didn't happen, and it took a very long road before I learned how to talk about it. By that time (after over two years), I was ashamed that it had taken me so long. I felt silly and I also was convinced that my desires were petty or pointless. Granted, some of them were, but when he and I learned how to articulate our desires and expectations and learned how to speak each others’ languages, everything changed. But, my expectations never wavered. I still found myself wanting to feel a way I didn’t or be treated a way that simply wasn’t his way of showing love, while his methods of showing love the best he could never seemed good enough.

It wasn’t until I was married that I learned a new development was necessary. I wanted love that looked a certain way. I wasn’t focused on loving. Could I love my husband because of who he was and who God made him to be, or did I only love the times he made me feel how I wanted to feel? I was ashamed again to find my answer was leaning more towards the latter. God’s love has always been selfless. Marriage is meant to be an example of how God loves us. I was failing. We can do nothing for God and so our worth to him is inherent. His love is truly without condition. Mine wasn’t. Because I’m a human, it may never be, but I can look at my husband differently now than I did a couple of years ago.I had to learn to love him, not what he was interested in, not what I thought he would become, not what he did, but just him as the person God created and delights in. I can be happy or unhappy with him based on what he does, but my love for him needs to be unwavering, as God is, and not dependent on how I feel or even how well he loves me. 

Finally, and most importantly, God’s standards for love apply for our love for him. This is sometimes the easiest and sometimes the hardest for me to do. It’s probably pretty easy to guess when it changes. God is easy to love unconditionally when he gives us only good things and conveys love for us. It’s more of a challenge when we are seemingly given a snake when we asked for a fish. The ultimate question is, do I love God for what he does for me, or because of who he is? That's a hard one, and not yet one I can put a formula to. I guess it comes down to knowing God well, to listening for his voice, reading his word, knowing him for who he is. It's then plain that he is good and that makes him easy to trust and so easy to love.