Surrendering to the Truest Love
Being loved and accepted was and still is something I desire more than anything in my life. Not just metaphorically either. Being loved and accepted was something I had a deep yearning for, that influenced and inspired all my decisions, and was at the root of my thought processing. Rejection being the antithesis of that love, I sought to avoid pain and abandonment through tears that would keep my mother close until death removed her ability to tend to my side. In my humanity, I developed ways to keep people close and to receive the love that I thought I couldn’t live without. There is a word for this that I didn’t like: manipulation which is a fancy way to say control. If you don’t believe that you will receive what you need you find ways to make sure you will receive it. This manipulation and control isn’t pure in nature, but populates from a form of unbelief. When you bring that in the same room of who our God is, that form of control can not stand against the backdrop of how noncontrolling He is, especially in the way that He loves. In His love, He doesn’t seek to control, in fact, He’s known best for giving out free will. Some love it, as they consistently choose evil, and some wrestle with it as they are harmed by other ill-will decisions with their free will. So if the Father who gives free will loves without abandon, without control but lovingly and gently guides and protects why am I controlling in my love? why do I put so much pressure on myself to get it all right and make all the decisions that will ensure my happiness, joy, and contentment? Well probably because there is a belief somewhere that God isn’t really good and that I have to do, and strive and work to get good things. Not only is this a justification through works, but it is also a rejection of grace.
This rejection of grace goes against the very evil that Christ came to conquer in His death on the Christ. He died so that ALL might be saved. But I think while many complexities can land one in this place of unbelief I think the root of it is a misunderstanding of Who God is. And I don’t just mean the characteristics of How God reveals Himself for instance: holy, righteous, good, just, loving, etc. But I mean the very nature of God as the triune God existing in unity through the Father, the Son, and the spirit. If you don’t understand WHO God is, how can you TRUST who He is? That He is always Good because of the very function of His nature.
I have sought to understand myself, and my nature, and they have not led me very far, if anything it has only led me to a more frustrated faith as I seek to understand my pains, hangups, and pockets of peace. But When I sit in who He is, and His nature, as He is revealed so am I. The fragility of man, and how frail we are in the presence of God. That we are created to worship God BECAUSE he loves us. Not because we are his subjects and servants. This character assassination of God distorts his image and therefore our worship and definitely steals our peace, joy, and ability to rejoice in Him because can we really know Him at all if we are misaligned with a gospel that has no good news because His nature doesn’t lie in Gospel that is merely for self-help, self-improvement, self-deliverance, legalism, justification by works, or shame-based. That is no good news at all. it is heavy, and hard and is a burden given to those who are seeking for the burdens to be lifted.
The good news is that it’s not up to us to do anything or to get anything right. To sift through all the mess that is constantly being thrown at those who are just seeking Christ. The key to it all is to stop seeking control and stop manipulating your life to be what you want it to be. Let us learn from Jacob whose name was later changed to Israel because he stopped manipulating in his attempts to control God but instead surrendered. What Jacob did as He wrestled with the angel desperately wanting to be blessed was that He realized He could do nothing without God. He submitted to the will of the Father in the midst of many trials, struggles, and frustrations. He was not absent of pain. He was not content because he had controlled and manipulated everything to look and be the way he wanted it to be….
In my own life the love that I desperately sought after through the acceptance that affirmed my very existence, even after being saved I was still dead in my sin in that I hadn’t fully surrendered my deepest desire to be loved that I found myself in a place where I was submitted and surrendering to a love that was a counterfeit. Betraying me with their lies to love me, that I eagerly believed because I wanted to, in fact, I would have told you that I needed to because of all those who didn’t love me before. Those who had hurt me, those who had betrayed me led me to the arms of those who did more of the same. It was a combination of my own depravity and the selfish motives of others that led me to that place. But even in that, God responded with a deep love for me, as he laid out a bridge leading me to the truest love I’d ever known and the most freeing peace as I abided in Him and no longer the fears that kept me in bondage masqueraded as freedom.
In my surrendering of what I thought I needed. God taught me how to seek Him above all these things that I had been seeking to give me joy, contentment, and happiness. These little idols or mini gods couldn’t save me, couldn’t love me. But God used it all and allowed my humanity to grow and enlarge my faith in Him. That, as I ran to him brokenhearted by the failings of my gods, I saw how He was the most worthy of the costs I was paying in my pains and struggles. He is the ONLY one who can sit in my pain with the ability to heal it and soothe me in the midst of it.
I have learned as I stare at His character and the true gospel message that I could actually trust Him with my pain, trust Him with my desires, that He is a God whom I can trust with my heart (my mind, emotions, desires, and will). Not only is He worthy of such, but he has paid the highest cost through His son.
