Unconditional Love
These past two months have been a struggle. I have felt lost and far away from God. My desire to spend time with Him disappeared, and earlier this week, God convicted me of this. I have been literally trying to write this blog post for two months now. I sat down in front of my Macbook and started typing, but would find myself deleting sentence after sentence. I could not get the right words out, but it was the Lord teaching me something and He wasn’t quite finished.
I LOVE planning and organizing my life. Don’t ask why, but I enjoy that type of stuff. My day is always planned out-to do lists and all-and whenever I don’t have my “plan”, I feel lost. Another thing about me is that I always try to be prepared and think ahead. So it’s normal to say that I have been thinking about my summer plans. But that’s when things started to get frustrating.
This school year has opened many opportunities and decisions for me: stay in Fargo, work at camp, Summer Project, and so on. But with these opportunities came decision making-something I was not prepared for. Since summer is approaching (Hallelujah!), people have been asking me what my summer plans consist of. And for once in my life, I have no plan. Answering this question consisted of a simple shrug of my shoulders and a “I have absolutely no idea”.
As I prayed about summer, I didn’t hear God’s voice. I continued to pray and continued to hear nothing. I was to the point where I was frustrated with God. Why couldn’t I hear his voice? This led me to many nights full of tears and frustration. The idea of being patient and waiting was hard for me to do. I felt the pressure of deadlines approaching, and I became even more anxious as I waited for the Lord to answer.
But this is not what this blog is about. It’s about what the Lord taught me through this “quiet” time in my life.
The Lord has convicted me of what I have been doing-having a conditional relationship with Him. So what exactly is a conditional relationship? In my words, a conditional relationship is one in which both people expect something out of it. “If” is the key word. If you give me this, I will give you that in return.
On the other hand, an unconditional relationship is one in which love is poured out to the other person no matter what. Right and wrongs do not count. Mistakes do not count. No matter what happens, you will always love the other person. No strings attached. With the Lord, this means no matter what He’s doing in my life, where he has placed me, or what He has taken away will not change my love for Him, it will only increase. At the end of the day, it is saying “Blessed be the name of the Lord”, no matter what is going on in life.
Since God obviously wasn’t giving me the answer to my question when I wanted, my relationship with Him was lacking. I didn’t desire Him-why? God doesn’t look at me and see my sinful ways or my lack of desire for Him and just walk away. No, He continues to seek and love me so much more than I can even begin to comprehend. Even when I reject Him, He continues to love me. God’s relationship with me isn’t conditional, it’s unconditional. So why should I be able to pull out the conditional card when the going gets tough?
My relationship with the Lord is not always an easy one. Every single day I fall short of God’s glory. It reminds me I’m not perfect. Throughout the different seasons in life, I find myself in an array of emotions. Some seasons I am so thankful for what the Lord is doing in my life and then there are the times where I don’t know what God is doing. I constantly give God conditional love while he gives me unconditional love in return. It’s beautiful and overwhelming how much God loves us. He does answer our prayers-just not in our timing. I guess a big part of life is figuring out how to take the focus off yourself and put your focus on Christ. But when we do this, we can find full satisfaction and joy in the One who showed us what unconditional love really means.
With Blessings,
Heather
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