Falling in Love with God

Going through Falling in Love Again with Your Lord, I was wracked by the idea that I am not in love with the Lord. I saw that I am in awe of Him and what He has done for us. But I can’t say I love Him with all my heart, mind, and strength. I was devastated over this. I started to FINALLY make a connection to an email we received some time ago from another woman in the ministry confessing that she has been crying over the fact that she has to live with this flesh on earth. I never understood this. I often thought of the email because I couldn’t comprehend the sadness about it.

I finally understood why she was so sad. During the lessons I began to cry out to the Lord and became so sad over the fact that I live in this sinful flesh. I felt this sadness because I knew I should absolutely want to love Him more than anything. I was brought to tears over a flesh that is self-serving, worldly, and consumed with this life.

I kept telling the Lord, “How do I know I really mean it when I say I want you to be my all in all? I don’t feel like I do; I don’t feel like I mean this.” I was so frustrated at this. Every time I would say out loud, “Let me love you above anything and everything,” I kept also saying, “Do you really mean this?” But I started to confess too, “Father, everything is pointing to me not meaning this, but give me the grace to feel your love. Abba Father, make your love more real, more tangible, more believable than anything my eyes have seen.”

I somehow kept missing the fact that I keep trying to do this all on my own. And I keep trying over and over. But then it hit me, if I could do this all on my own this would completely take away what Christ did for me. If I could do this all on my own it would take away the cross. If we were even a smidge capable of loving Him more than anything else, just in our strength then the Lord would not have sent His only Son. Jesus knew we weren’t able to do this. 

After feeling so discouraged, today I went into my alone time with Him and He showed me something so sweet. During Lesson Two, “Earnestly I Seek You,” we read: “My beloved is mine, and I am his” (Song of Sol. 2:16). Almost immediately I was reminded of the Scripture I placed on our wedding invites: “…I found him whom my soul loves” (Song of Sol. 3:4). I thought to myself about how many times I read this and thought of this Scripture about my relationship with my husband but never in the context of my relationship with my Lord. In that moment I felt my heart warm for the first time with a sense of excitement. It seemed very personal to me. I felt as though I was reading a special note He had left for me to see. It felt very real. Shortly after I went on to read in the study:

The more you draw near and get to know God the more He may surprise you. He is so much more loving than we expect. He has greater plans for you than you have for yourself, but His ways are not our ways…He is God. He is your God. He knows what is best for you. 

When reading the words above, I could feel such a sense of joy surfacing in me. I need to get out of the way, and trust Him with my heart. For me, I no longer want to just be in awe of what He has done for me, I want to be in love with who He is.

All for His Glory