Do you ever struggle with loving yourself?
How about believing you are loved? Or if you know you are, believing you are worthy of being loved?
Or I am the only one?
A while back God and I were talking. I hear best with a pen in hand, focusing my scattered thoughts by writing in a pretty blank book. I wrote to Him about how I felt lonely for His attention. “Honesty says I am angry about the times I’ve tried so hard to listen (to You) and heard nothing.”
I felt His response. Seeking to put it into words I recorded, “How many times have I tried to show you my love, and you haven’t listened? How many times have you heard . . . and rejected the Voice, fearing you had fabricated such kindness? How can I reveal to you my goodness, my love, my humor, and my kindness if you continue to fear that Voice? If you continue to doubt that you hear Me? How can I be a Lover if you refuse the sweet somethings I whisper in your ears!
“All my Words to you don’t have to be directive. I want to talk. To be together. To develop intimacy. Remember what I said, ‘I no longer call you servant, but friends?’ . . . You’ve shown me you will serve Me. That is understood. Done. Established. But will you love me, and let Me love you as a Friend, as a Lover?”
I wrote those words last August but they came to mind this morning. Last night I read in my Bible, “Remain in my love,” and I’ve been thinking all day about what that is like.
Wouldn’t remaining in His love be hanging out there, living a life immersed in the passionate belief that my Creator adores me? Letting that truth be the foundation for all else?
I am loved.
In Becoming Myself Stasi Eldredge wrote, “The world does not need yet another woman who despises the lovely person she is. God does not long for another woman who rejects herself and, by extension, Him. The world needs a woman who is thankful for how God made her, trusts that He is transforming her, and actually enjoys who she is. It’s a good thing to like who you are. God likes you!”
And hasn’t that been the issue? Believing that a Perfect God actually likes me? That because of Christ I don’t have to put up a wall to vast love because I think I don’t deserve it, because I think I’m not good enough, lovely enough to be loved like that?
Jesus also said, “Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit.”
Remain in what part of Jesus?
His Love.
Could it be that all our dreams of doing good will best produce the desired result if we can only learn to be loved?
To live from that place of being adored by God?
Oh that we may snuggle deep into His embrace believing we are fully loved!
A Little Breathless at the Thought,
Paula's Blog 