As I previously shared, since the beginning of this year I have learned a lot of life lessons. The one that has changed me the most is what I learned about love. Love as a child of God, loving my self and how to better love others. Here is a little piece of what I learned...
I always thought I understood that God loves me. I grew up hearing the words "God loves you", all the time. I knew in my head that he loves me, but what does that really mean? I didn't feel his love, I couldn't see it or hear it. So his love was just something in my head, but it did not make its way to my heart. For me the first step in understanding the love of God was to realize that I actually don't know what it means.
During the dts I was so blessed to have an amazing woman as my mentor, a person I could talk to about anything and someone to help me process my thoughts. She gave me some great advise, she said one of the steps that helped her to know in her heart what God's love is, was to be rooted in his love. That sounds kind of strange; but really it just means to know that love, deep in your heart like the roots of a tree. God works in amazing ways, the same week that I was talking to her about this the topic of the lectures was the character of God and more specifically why we were created.
For some people the answer to this is obvious, but I know for me and many others the answer to this question was unclear. I heard a lot of answers throughout life but none of them satisfied me, none of them really made sense. Until I heard this answer, we were created because of love. I could go on with a long explanation of reasons, but I want to make it simple. LOVE. We were created because God is love, in his perfect relationship there is love. Love wants to give and share and so God created us because he loves us. Not because he needs us to do things for him, not even because he needs us in order to love us. No, simply because he loves. Anything else makes God lower and weaker than he is, it makes him need us, which could not be the case.
I might have heard this before but it somehow at that moment finally hit. This made sense to me. It also meant that I could not make God love me, he already does. I can not make him love me more or less, he made me because he loves me. He does not need my acts of worship in order to love me. He loves me just the way I am, even if I chose not to go after him he loves me. It was such a freeing and profound truth in my heart. A big step in understanding what love is.
