you see...
I found myself recently doubting myself. Doubting others. Somehow this world has created in me (and I presume others?) a skepticism of people's love.
I wouldn't say that it's about people seeking approval from others ... it's about wanting others to love us. We have this engrained fear that if we do or say the "wrong" thing, we will loose his/her favor and love. I found myself in a new-ish relationship wondering if my friend had lost interest and no longer enjoyed me. That fear somehow snuck up on me... and as I think about it, I can easily believe it - that is what our culture has taught me to believe. Yet, I know it's not true. It is so easy to be skeptical of people's love - not in some sense of thinking they are in it for some alternative motives, but just skeptical of them actually loving me. This culture's hearts are so impulsive... we change our minds too quickly. We get bored easily. We want others to be perfect, yet we cannot be perfect ourselves. Our relationships are broken. There are high divorce rates forcing us to wonder; even though its been years, how do we know he/she will not change their mind? Must I keep proving myself?
Why can we not accept each other? Why must love be so difficult to accept? It should not be. And I know this. God's grace and love abounds. We are drenched in it, but we keep searching for some cup full of water to be handed to us and in the process we splash ourselves with the little cups we are handed that make little difference to our already drenched state... yet we continue to search for more cups of water.
I am bound to this world much too tightly. How do I live for God instead of man? Let me love and be loved, Lord.
I wouldn't say that it's about people seeking approval from others ... it's about wanting others to love us. We have this engrained fear that if we do or say the "wrong" thing, we will loose his/her favor and love. I found myself in a new-ish relationship wondering if my friend had lost interest and no longer enjoyed me. That fear somehow snuck up on me... and as I think about it, I can easily believe it - that is what our culture has taught me to believe. Yet, I know it's not true. It is so easy to be skeptical of people's love - not in some sense of thinking they are in it for some alternative motives, but just skeptical of them actually loving me. This culture's hearts are so impulsive... we change our minds too quickly. We get bored easily. We want others to be perfect, yet we cannot be perfect ourselves. Our relationships are broken. There are high divorce rates forcing us to wonder; even though its been years, how do we know he/she will not change their mind? Must I keep proving myself?
Why can we not accept each other? Why must love be so difficult to accept? It should not be. And I know this. God's grace and love abounds. We are drenched in it, but we keep searching for some cup full of water to be handed to us and in the process we splash ourselves with the little cups we are handed that make little difference to our already drenched state... yet we continue to search for more cups of water.
I am bound to this world much too tightly. How do I live for God instead of man? Let me love and be loved, Lord.