Tens of hundreds of times greater.
We don't like pain, nobody does.
And when we suffer, when people we love suffer, and even when we see complete strangers suffering we wonder,
God.. where are you? If you love me, why is this happening? If you love these people, why are you doing this to them? Where's your mercy?
And when we suffer, when people we love suffer, and even when we see complete strangers suffering we wonder,
God.. where are you? If you love me, why is this happening? If you love these people, why are you doing this to them? Where's your mercy?
Elisabeth Elliot puts it well:
“Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffering. The love of God did not protect His own Son. The cross was the proof of His love – that He gave that Son, that He let Him go to Calvary’s cross, though “legions of angels” might have rescued Him. He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process."
It's difficult to take in. I mean, we're only human. The heart wants what the heart wants. And I guess that's why we look for acceptance, comfort and satisfaction in things other than Christ, it's because we're not being loved the way we want to be loved. As much as we try to go against the tide, as much as we deny that media and the world influences our thoughts, as hipster as you try to be - not being part of that whole 'mainstream' garbage - your surroundings, your environment, the things you encounter every day, these things shape your mind.
Christian or not, acknowledge it. But don't accept it.
Movies and TV shows demonstrate love as something you find only in yourself, and that once you love yourself you'll be able to love others. But then there are songs with lines like, Let me love you and I will love you until you learn to love yourself (PS. I LOVE Ne-Yo, so this isn't a stab at him. Musically, he's awesome. Lyrically, well.. everyone can do a bit better). So as much as we say that it's just a song, subconsciously, we want to be loved by someone that doesn't stop loving us, no matter what we do.
Or love is what you make. Two people who love each other show that they love each other by having sex, getting physical. Why not? People trust each other with their hearts and their secrets, might as well give their bodies, too.
Or we just want those holes in our hearts to be filled. And in whatever way that may be - through praise, through acceptance, through success, through money; emotionally, through hearing 'I-love-you's', through friendships, trustworthiness - we just don't want to feel empty. We need to be fulfilled, simply in the way that we want to be.
From a Christian perspective, it's not that what you want is bad. Friendships, acceptance, marriage, even sex - God didn't create these things just to dangle them in our faces. These things are all good. But is God not greater? We settle. It's easy to say that after having broken up with someone, we say that we just settled for less than we deserve. But we settle a lot more than we think.
We were made for so much more than to eat, drink and be merry. Fulfillment, how many times do we need to remind ourselves that we will not find it in these things?
You know, I can't lie. It kind of bothers me when I hear or see people say this:
I have a clean car, an amazing boyfriend, a loving family, a safe home, a stable job, good grades, a healthy life, and the best of friends anyone could ever ask for. I'm happy. #blessed #thankful
Does it take having all those things you listed for you to be happy? To feel blessed? To be thankful? Honestly, I hate to be a KJ over here, but let's be real - we allow our circumstances to define our contentment in life! When things are good, we really feel like God loves us. It's easy to say and it's easy to believe, because our lives show for it.
You know what's difficult to say?
My grandmother just passed away, I'm failing my classes, I've been cheated and lied to, my closest friend no longer talks to me, my spiritual life is going down the drain - but God still loves me. And he is still good. And though I don't see it, though it's hard to believe, I know it's true.
The reason we aren't loved the way we want to be loved, the reason that God doesn't love us the way we want to be loved, is because our whole perception of love is centered around a pile of crap (an image of a pile of crap literally just popped up in my head, don't ask why). We have it all wrong. We don't know what true love is. Or some of us do, and we just allow ourselves to be swayed by everything else in life.
No, love is not getting what you want; it's not feeling good about yourself; it's not making others feel good about themselves; it's not finding your true beauty within yourself; it's not trust; it's not sex; it's not an emotion. Love is God, who made the ultimate sacrifice by allowing his son to be mocked, tortured, and die a painful and humiliating death. And yet, here we are telling our girlfriends and boyfriends we love them, telling our parents we love them - when do we even really mean it half the time? Are you really prepared to give away your everything, to rid yourself of yourself, for them?
We've got it all wrong. Our minds haven't been focused on the truth. And maybe it's because we allow our minds to drift off to other things - YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter - whatever the heck we can access quickly, we like to crowd our minds with. But our Bibles? That takes time to open pages, it takes time to read and actually understand what you're reading. And yet, it's worth all the effort.
We need to remind ourselves of what true love is. We need to set our minds on things above, keep for ourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust don't destroy. We need to strip ourselves of these things that weigh us down and distract us from completing our race, keeping our eyes set on Christ. Because the things that we seek on earth are inadequate, they're insufficient. No matter how great they make us feel for a short amount of time, as immediate as that gratification is, they will never permanently suffice. But God's love, from which nothing can separate us, is tens of hundreds of times greater than we could ever imagine, than we can ever know - and this can be what drives us, what motivates us, and what gives us hope.
(PS. I don't say these things or write these posts so I can make people feel bad about themselves. Half the time, I don't really expect anyone to read these.. but it's how I remind myself that as I try to point out the specks in others' eyes, there's a huge log in mine.)
“Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffering. The love of God did not protect His own Son. The cross was the proof of His love – that He gave that Son, that He let Him go to Calvary’s cross, though “legions of angels” might have rescued Him. He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process."
It's difficult to take in. I mean, we're only human. The heart wants what the heart wants. And I guess that's why we look for acceptance, comfort and satisfaction in things other than Christ, it's because we're not being loved the way we want to be loved. As much as we try to go against the tide, as much as we deny that media and the world influences our thoughts, as hipster as you try to be - not being part of that whole 'mainstream' garbage - your surroundings, your environment, the things you encounter every day, these things shape your mind.
Christian or not, acknowledge it. But don't accept it.
Movies and TV shows demonstrate love as something you find only in yourself, and that once you love yourself you'll be able to love others. But then there are songs with lines like, Let me love you and I will love you until you learn to love yourself (PS. I LOVE Ne-Yo, so this isn't a stab at him. Musically, he's awesome. Lyrically, well.. everyone can do a bit better). So as much as we say that it's just a song, subconsciously, we want to be loved by someone that doesn't stop loving us, no matter what we do.
Or love is what you make. Two people who love each other show that they love each other by having sex, getting physical. Why not? People trust each other with their hearts and their secrets, might as well give their bodies, too.
Or we just want those holes in our hearts to be filled. And in whatever way that may be - through praise, through acceptance, through success, through money; emotionally, through hearing 'I-love-you's', through friendships, trustworthiness - we just don't want to feel empty. We need to be fulfilled, simply in the way that we want to be.
From a Christian perspective, it's not that what you want is bad. Friendships, acceptance, marriage, even sex - God didn't create these things just to dangle them in our faces. These things are all good. But is God not greater? We settle. It's easy to say that after having broken up with someone, we say that we just settled for less than we deserve. But we settle a lot more than we think.
We were made for so much more than to eat, drink and be merry. Fulfillment, how many times do we need to remind ourselves that we will not find it in these things?
You know, I can't lie. It kind of bothers me when I hear or see people say this:
I have a clean car, an amazing boyfriend, a loving family, a safe home, a stable job, good grades, a healthy life, and the best of friends anyone could ever ask for. I'm happy. #blessed #thankful
Does it take having all those things you listed for you to be happy? To feel blessed? To be thankful? Honestly, I hate to be a KJ over here, but let's be real - we allow our circumstances to define our contentment in life! When things are good, we really feel like God loves us. It's easy to say and it's easy to believe, because our lives show for it.
You know what's difficult to say?
My grandmother just passed away, I'm failing my classes, I've been cheated and lied to, my closest friend no longer talks to me, my spiritual life is going down the drain - but God still loves me. And he is still good. And though I don't see it, though it's hard to believe, I know it's true.
The reason we aren't loved the way we want to be loved, the reason that God doesn't love us the way we want to be loved, is because our whole perception of love is centered around a pile of crap (an image of a pile of crap literally just popped up in my head, don't ask why). We have it all wrong. We don't know what true love is. Or some of us do, and we just allow ourselves to be swayed by everything else in life.
No, love is not getting what you want; it's not feeling good about yourself; it's not making others feel good about themselves; it's not finding your true beauty within yourself; it's not trust; it's not sex; it's not an emotion. Love is God, who made the ultimate sacrifice by allowing his son to be mocked, tortured, and die a painful and humiliating death. And yet, here we are telling our girlfriends and boyfriends we love them, telling our parents we love them - when do we even really mean it half the time? Are you really prepared to give away your everything, to rid yourself of yourself, for them?
We've got it all wrong. Our minds haven't been focused on the truth. And maybe it's because we allow our minds to drift off to other things - YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter - whatever the heck we can access quickly, we like to crowd our minds with. But our Bibles? That takes time to open pages, it takes time to read and actually understand what you're reading. And yet, it's worth all the effort.
We need to remind ourselves of what true love is. We need to set our minds on things above, keep for ourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust don't destroy. We need to strip ourselves of these things that weigh us down and distract us from completing our race, keeping our eyes set on Christ. Because the things that we seek on earth are inadequate, they're insufficient. No matter how great they make us feel for a short amount of time, as immediate as that gratification is, they will never permanently suffice. But God's love, from which nothing can separate us, is tens of hundreds of times greater than we could ever imagine, than we can ever know - and this can be what drives us, what motivates us, and what gives us hope.
(PS. I don't say these things or write these posts so I can make people feel bad about themselves. Half the time, I don't really expect anyone to read these.. but it's how I remind myself that as I try to point out the specks in others' eyes, there's a huge log in mine.)
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