self-pity, self-glorification & Grace // lesson #2
Learning to be on my own.
Love. Oh love. What is love? (♬ Baby don’t hurt me. ♪ ♫)
But really. What is it?
We’re constantly bombarded by it — in movies/TV shows, by our friends, our family, community, it’s everywhere. But what does true love look like?
In Disney movies, it’s always “true love’s kiss” that breaks the curse, and it’s reinforced over and over again that true love is romantic love (which can be true), but to me, these movies seem to skip over the other types of true love, what about the love between family, the love between founded friends? That’s what I loved about Frozen… the act of true love that broke the curse was an act that demonstrated the deep bond between sisters. A committed love that persists in spite of experiencing hardship and knowing the flaws of another, and recognizes that it doesn’t form in the span of a couple of days, but takes time and effort.
Love. It’s so easy for me to idolize you. To feel like you could solve my problems, cure my loneliness, the ache in my heart that longs for companionship and someone to motivate me to be my fullest potential. But what kind of love am I thinking of? Afterall, is God not Love?
Indeed, His name is Love, the greatest Love out there. A Love so great to compel a Father to sacrifice His one and only Son, Jesus, for us wretched sinners who didn’t deserve any of it… so that we may obtain righteousness and be freed from the bondage of sin and resulting penalty of death. So that we too may experience this great Love, and the complete joy found by being in union with Him. What makes this Love so great is that when Jesus died on the cross, He not only suffered the physical turmoil of being whipped 39 times, having nails pierced through His hands and feet on a cross; the psychological and emotional affliction of being mocked and ridiculed for who He was, and disowned and betrayed by two of His closest companions; and ultimately, the greatest agony of spiritual severance from God the Father. He had to be alienated from the Father to conquer death, so that we may have life.
It’s so easy for me to forget this. Every day I have to preach to myself and ask God to preach to me His promises to me, to you. That He will never leave or forsake me, so I need not ever be afraid nor terrified. That if I hope in the Lord, I may run and not grow weary, soar on wings like eagles, walk and not be faint. That He works for the good for those who love Him, for me and you.. and though His plan isn’t exactly what I imagined, I trust that whatever going on in my life is being used to grow me, mature me, and teach me what it truly means to be a disciple of Christ.
So, I’m at peace. To reach this point is never easy, I’ve realized. God has already given us the strength to conquer; we just need to trust Him and act upon it. Afterall, faith without action is dead. Recently, God’s been challenging not to take matters into my own hands… so instead of doing what I want in that moment, I’m learning to wait, to pray, to write letters to Him, asking Him for direction in where to go. To rest and dwell in His all-sufficient Love when all I want to do is fill the void in my heart with something or someone else.
It’s so easy to forget that God’s pursuit of us is the greatest love story ever told. We may never be able to grasp how deep, how wide, how long, how high is the Father’s love for us, but I’m excited to spend the rest of my life finding out. So I realize, while it’s felt like I’ve been learning to be on my own all this time, it wasn’t that. I was learning to be on my own with Christ by my side, in Christ alone.
