Most things in my life have been great- my job, my family, my new roommate, step class, Bible Study with the Jr. High girls, etcetera, etcetra….
Despite all those good things I’ve been enjoying, I have also been battling with this inner turmoil since Christmas. (Probably why my posts have been anecdotal and overall lame this year…sorry friends).
This inner turmoil largely has to do with trusting that I am loved (or a lack of trusting would be more appropriate). It all started with a sticky situation with a friend, but has ended with me realizing that this fear is a symptom of a more foundational need.
The love of God is a fairly basic theological assumption and truth, I realize, but it’s also something that I come back to again and again with difficulty. Even though I wouldn’t own up to this on a statement of faith, the Lord has revealed a deep mistrust of the enduring faithfulness and affectionate nature of His love for me.
For far too long I have been translating the love of God as His pity for my finite spiritual state and attributing His generosity to His “fair” nature – that He only loves me because He is God and He loves the whole world. That His love would fade and be revealed as just an obligation- an obligation He would resent and grow weary of. I didn’t want to depend too much on the security of His love if He was only going to remove it once He saw my lack of improvement. I’ve harbored this terror of being abandoned by God and by others for such a long time that it started to seem true and normal. And yet in His graciousness, God painfully revealed this dark place in me.
My theology convinces me that the Lord is not the one I need to be concerned about – instead I need to learn to believe and trust His truth in a way that goes beyond the facts. I need to experience His love in my real life and be assured that these significant eternal truths are not just for the future or the spiritual realm only, but they are a part of my everyday reality. I’ve been asking the Lord to replace the fear and expectation I have of being abandoned with His delight instead.
Awhile ago I
blogged about being at a coffee shop doing a word study about “delight”. I can say that the results were so different from what I expected but also caused a swelling of hope in me. I expected to find fluffy words about how the Lord thinks I’m beautiful and great and made me special…. but instead I found that the Lord delights in His Word, in His Law, in blamelessness, in the prayer of the upright, in loving-kindness and righteousness. Those who put their delight in the Lord are not put to shame. Over and over again these verses demonstrate the value of delighting in God above anything else. The themes of obedience, truthfulness and waiting on Him have been transforming my perspective lately of what it looks like to delight in God.
Learning on this topic and receiving the healing offered is FAR from over, but I feel in a less fragile enough place to share these words and experiences. God has not failed me….instead through this pain and struggle, I have found the hope and security I am always longing for!
