What's Up With Love?

Do you ever question the hype about LOVE? Why does everyone make this "love thing" such an important part of life? Where does the whole love topic come from and why has it swept over everyone of us? People will often times spend their whole life trying to find someone to love and just as much trying spent trying to be loved. It's like the song, "Whats Love Got To Do With It?" Why do we all crave to be loved? Why has it been installed in us to want to feel the excitement, embrace, passion, care, hopefulness and sincerity that love has to offer? 

There are plenty of accrunams you can create for the word love: 

L - Learning
O - Observing
V - Validating
E - Experiencing

L - Listening
O - Openness
V - Vision
E - Empathy 

Although we can create catchy phrases for the meaning of love and what it was designed for, nothing says it better then the Bible. Cheesy? Hardly! The Bible gives such an amazing understand of why we all long for love! There are several verses that describe how God loves as well as people demonstrating love in the many different stories you read in Scripture. I thought that 1 John 4:7-21 helps explain who installed the desire in us to love and what authentic love looks like.

God’s Love and Ours

⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹ Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.


¹³ This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. ¹⁶ And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. ¹⁷ This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
  
¹⁹ We love because he first loved us. ²⁰ Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. ²¹ And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. 

Reading these scriptures is such an amazing reminded of how powerful and loving our God is. I need to remember to thank Him daily for His sacrifice of His Son Jesus Christ. I'm blessed and overwhelmed with how Great and Passion my God loves me. & YOU!

I give everything to You Lord

Talk About It

Depending on how your friends and romantic relationships have gone throughout your life will typically influence how you believe your future relationships will go. If you have had a lot of positive relationships in your life you may be more pron to think of words such as: Trust, Love, Faithfulness, Care, Honesty and vulnerability. Although, if you've been wounded badly you may lean more towards words such as: Hurt, brokenhearted, pain, mistrust, guarded and lies. Let's face it - We've all been hurt & we'll all get hurt again. So where is the happy middle ground of trusting someone and opening yourself up to them, and not being so trusting that you get hurt unnecessarily in the end. God talks about this issue, which means it is important to Him. Enough to give us Godly advice and council on how to conduct ourselves. Proverbs 4:23 says, "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." Isn't that so good?! God cautions us to protect our hearts because they are a valuable entity. Your heart is valuable! I believe that if you are being aware to the condition of your heart, you'll be able to tell if you are guarding your heart out of obedience to God or to simply stonewall anyone from being let into your world. There is a difference, one is beneficial and produces a healthy life, while the other option is a destructive way of protecting yourself and in other words it really say's, "I'm scared to get hurt again."

I have to catch myself, still to this day, to not shut down or close off when I get hurt or I'm feeling like someone is being insensitive. If you are struggling with this balance of trust and letting someone in, especially romantically, it will most likely be a forever battle. Non of us want to get hurt so we all have to fight the urge to be defensive, push those who are close to us away or "give up" on people. I do know one thing for sure though. Spending more time with God allows you to trust someone fully, with no body guards necessary to protect you and your heart. You can be fully safe in Gods hands, fully trusting in His care, fully vulnerable and open with no reservations.

Psalms 73:26 "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."


I give everything over to You Lord

Being Tested?

God is always somehow testing everything we do. But lately, I’ve actually been noticing it. He has been testing me with my character to love to be patient, with sensitivity, caring, selflessness, and some I don't know yet.
I have noticed through my actions and reactions to things, that i do not love as much as I could. Patients is constantly disappearing from my attitude, and it is honestly unfortunate . Sensitivity... Well, often times I feel as though I am too sensitive to things. I will cry about allot of things people wouldn't be affected by normally. (Ask Brittany and Braverijah)But, I suppose that's how God made me, I just feel to sensitive to my surroundings at times.
Caring, that's something I try to obtain and fail, constantly and will continuously fail at. But never the less, I have been working at it. Selflessness is another very very weak point. I am always being selfish, I can't think of a day where i am not wanting things to satisfy my flesh, or not giving of myself enough.
God will always work on those things, (to name a few) and i am thankful that he is willing to take time and care for me.
Push me Lord until I break.