Being Loved

First published on my regular spot on More Than Writers, the blog of the Association of Christian Writers, on 16th March 2016

I used to be desperate to be married, but to this day I remain single. Kind-hearted people would tell me 'God loves you'. They wanted me to know I was loved beyond measure by the God of the universe. My reaction was to think 'but He has to love me, He is God'. I wanted someone to choose to love me. I didn't see God's love as a choice somehow.

I wanted someone to choose to love me with all my heart. I instinctively knew it was not good to refuse the love of God 'because He has to love you'. I could never work out why I thought like that though. Why did I think a man would be better than God?

Today it came to me. I wanted any love I received to be because of me. I wanted to have earned the love I received by who I was. I was living a salvation by works, even though outwardly I professed a salvation by faith. I wanted to find a man who would love me because I had earned his love. I wanted to control who loved me and how deeply they loved me by my good behaviour. It was all about me being in control of another person's love - even when that other person is God.

I have learned now to simply accept God's love and it took a major crisis of faith for me to learn this (you can read more about this time of my life in my book He Never Let Go). I now see His love is better. It is better exactly because it doesn't depend on me. I don't have to earn it. I am loved no matter what I do. It depends on Him. It depends on the amazing grace of Father God in Heaven and His Son Jesus Christ who died for us. He is Love. He cannot help but love me as He is love. 

I now see there is such freedom in this, such grace. I am loved and it doesn't depend on my earning it. Now I have learned to surrender more to the love of God it has led to the most wonderful by product. In my surrender to His love I have found freedom from food addiction (to read more about my freedom from food addiction read my book Being Known). That freedom tastes so good! Praise God.

So if you read this and you find yourself still wishing to find someone who will choose to love you, if you think that God's love is not enough because He has to love you, I want to ask you a question. Try to answer it as honestly as you can. Are you trying to earn love? Are you wanting to be in control of who loves you and who doesn't by how you behave? True love is not earned. It is given freely. If it has to be earned it is not true love. True love depends on the giver of the love not on the receiver of it. 

My prayer today is that you will learn to yield completely to the love that God has to offer. It is the way to true freedom.