Love /Intimacy
- In order for a heart to open up, it must be aware of it's needs. Otherwise, there is no
motive to become vulnerable. A heart that is not aware of it's needs cannot be loved
because no one around it feels needed. How do we open a heart? By example.
- Those that seek love for the sake of security have no taste for what love has to offer. Love and security are not even distant cousins. Love is like a wild stallion. We grab his mane and hang on for dear life and as it takes control, we find that peace is found only in fulfillment.
- Can we love God unconditionally, without expectations?
- In order to love truly, we need to understand what true love is and how short we fall from it. It is rare for me to find someone who thinks that they are a loving person who really is. To see true love is to be humbled by it.
- Our ability to experience love is directly proportional to our vulnerability
- We wish to love more. We are surprised through circumstances at our limited ability to care. Do we start working our issues which are all designed to block us from loving? No, that would just turn into an endless narcissistic obsession. We ask God to make us more loving. When we become more loving, the source of many of our issues become irrelevant. Besides, as our love grows, we will inevitably see more and more issues.
-In the past, only conditional love, love that I had earned, was what I desired. Now, that kind of love is not allowed in my presence. I can only trust unconditional love. Only those that love me when I am unloveable can love me when I am 'good'.
- How can light (love) be conditional? It can only be blocked by issues, etc.
- Conditional love requires us to be healed in order to receive it. Therfore, only unconditional love can heal. Everything else is just behavior modification.
- Love me when I am not loveable. That is when I need it the most.
- Fear is the worst vice. Love is the cure. 'Perfect love casts out fear.'
- How can we have true compassion for anyone whom we think we are better than? 'Take the beam...' This requires us not only to see our own faults more clearly, but to see the good in the other person.
- It is impossible to love without brokeness - the giving up of our expectations.
- Our ability to love is directly proportional to our willingness to see our own faults. Otherwise, when those that are around us complain, we have to ignore them in defensiveness or blame them for it.
- Honesty in private is like love in private. It does not count unless it involves someone else.
- Is our heart big enough that our passion for love is as big as our passion for justice?
- Help me Lord not to love through expectations.
- Oh Lord, help us to choose love over safety.
- A good show of love is our willingness to step outside of our comfort zone.
- The Lord's prayer - what is the vision? 'Thy kingdom come' - is it not talking about love as the ruling force? 'Forgive me as I forgive others' - is it not fighting against attacks on love? Love is the point.
- Puppies are easy to love because they have no ego. They depend on me and we are OK with that. This makes them free not only to receive love, but to give it back in bucketfuls.
- You can either be in control or in love. Everyone has to make that choice. Even God had to make that choice.
- Love and freedom do not go together.
- Help me Lord to love people in their own language. Only then is it truly giving.
- Intimacy cannot exist with independence.
- Love is prophetic.
- Soon spiritual love will be able to sit at the table with other loves.
- Pain hurts the most when it draws us inward. When it leads to self-pity and isolation.
There is no relief, but it does hurt less when we allow the pain to sensitize (enlarge) our hearts. Our pain allows us first to connect with others that share the same pain and ultimately with anyone that is hurting. It is the one thing we all have in common. And somehow, when it is shared in love and not bitterness, it becomes easier to bear. The ointment of the great physician is love which is neither given or received, but shared, because we do not own it.
- You can only see light (love) when it touches something.
- Love gives out. Need draws in. Love frees ourselves and others. Need controls. Love is courageous. Need is fearful.
- If love is real then we must bow to it for it is the core of life. Lord, help me to submit to it's disruptions. Help me to have the faith to let go of the religious control that stifles it and the courage to let You express it fully through me.
- Confusion is very rarely a lack of information but a lack of heart.
- Need takes what it can get. Love expects more. It does not explain itself.
- Love is the healing power, not the gifts. Jesus 'manifested' Himself in love through gifts not the other way around. Sometimes no miracles were required, such as with the prostitute. She found the love that she was craving in Him.
- When we use the power of our gifts to escape the pain and humiliation of life, are we substituting our depest desire of love for admiration? Are we hiding behind our gifts afraid of being mocked before others because we no longer like ourselves like Adam and Eve? The admiration is much easier on the pride than compassion for our struggles. But this is what I crave. That is why a spouse is so needed. A safe place to come apart. However, a marriage relationship shouldn't just be a place to dump. It is humiliating as one that needs help and one that helps others, that the root of all complicated issues is a need for love and the lack of humility to receive it.
- Love is directly proportional to humility.
- Unconditional love is the only love ther is. Everything else is need.
- Without perfect love (a limited heart) we have fear that God is not loving enough to take care of us. This is neediness which draws our heart inward to self and so it is a vicious cycle. We have to pray for God to make us loving.
- We cannot give charity with true dignity to the person we are giving it to unless we can receive charity with true gratefulness through humility. Charity has become a dirty word in our society when spoken of from the receiving perspective - 'I don't take charity!'. Independence is a prized virtue in our society. It will be so in a society that judges the quality of life based on material things and therefore ranks people's importance based on how much they own.
- Help me Lord to love myself as I am instead of setting high standards for myself. The more the Spirit moves in me the higher my expectations. This is how Dad 'loved' me. But I need to love myself as I am instead of any abilities and what I do. This will allow me to be more patient with others. When I can love myself, I can not only love others better, but I can receive love better, from God and others.
- Our service to God speaks loder to God and others when it involves sacrifice. David said, 'I will not offer to God what costs me nothing.'
- Jesus was not just for the apostles, the apostles were for Jesus. THey dropped the ball sometimes and angels had to take up the slack, but that should not be necessary.
- The Lord has been enlarging my heart to love difficult people from (name), to (name), to (name), to (name), to (name), to (name), and now the most difficult of all, me. I am below average competency in life in general, low intelligence, clumsy, shy, fearful, easily frustrated, depressed, old and needy.
- Abundant living can only come from loving others. The only way to love others is through a full understanding of God's grace. This only comes through a full understanding of our selfishness that demands that He make our life more comfortable. p68 Who You Are
- Our ability to love and care for others is directly related to our ability to perceive God's love for us. p.146 Pathways I Timothy 5:8 - Those that do not care for their own families are worse than an infidel. How can we be christians when our loved ones are in daycare and nursing homes? All love we then give to others must then be questioned as motivated by selfishness. When we take care of others, it is a ministry. When we take care of our own, it is seen more as an obligation.
- The more sexual our society gets, the more distant it gets because it does not allow legitimate forms of love. The more distant it gets, the more needy it gets and therefore the more sexual it gets.
- Our God is only as loving as we are. Of course, I am referring to our perception. We are only able to receive love to the extent that we can give it. Our view of God is a reflection of ourself. Trials bring us to the limitation of our love. That is why God seems so cruel and insensitive to our suffering. This is why trials either expand our love or decreases it, depending on how we react to them. When we reach out to God, we automatically reach out to others. When we withdraw from God, we withdraw from others.
- (name) love me for what I can do for him. (name) loves me at a distance because her perception of my love for her is so limited. Thank You Lord for showing me how You feel a little. Forgive me for the pain that I cause.
- Lord, help me to not let my desire for adoration to prevent me from receiving love without trying to elevate myself.
- I have always heard people say that there are three kinds of love - brotherly love, romantic love, and Godly love. There are only two -brotherly love (philio) and divine love (agape). Romantic love is translated agape. 'Love your neighbor as yourself' is also agape. We do worse than the Greeks to put romantic love in anything other than a spiritual light. Sex is the uniting of spirits. Ephesians 5:25 (Eros) is not in the Bible.
- The closest I have seen of love is people sacrificially giving in order to better themselves and further develop their gifts. Is that not my motives? Is love forgotten? Can it be found?
- I picture in my mind a group of people that I know the most. I pick from that group one of the people that I love most and one that I love least. The difference between the two is need. I can only love any of the others in the group as much as I love the one that I love the least. That is how 'fleshy' my heart is.
- Compassion kills codependency. Psalms 32:2 talks about guile (deceit, sloth). It then talks about confession and it's healing and about following His Spirit without a bridle. Our sould is the clothing of our spirit. Help me Lord that it is not fig leaves before You or others. p.10 Elijah Task
- There are those who say, 'You are too sensitive. The world is a hard place. You need to toughen up and protect yourself'. I will not. I would rather suffer the wounds of others that have followed that advice rather than be as they are. If I shut out life in order to survive it, what's the point?
- Most people dish out so-called love based on the other person's ability to contribute to their comfort. Wouldn't it make more sense to dish out love based on the other's ability to receive it? Or would that be self-centered also? Would it be wrong to give love to those that are not able to receive it? Jesus died for all. The question is, 'Can we do that and keep our boundaries?'. Only if we do it from God's perspective. The root of codependency is neediness or selfishness. A truly happy person is one who can love freely. An empty person cannot do this. Or can he? Didn't the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 show that we receive by giving? Lord, show me opportunities to give love. There has to be more than I can do. Help me, Lord, to give with a cheerful heart and not out of duty because duty just further drains me. Is this why the world is so full of needy, empty people - everyone is trying to meet their own needs? God prefers to meet our needs through others. It keeps us close and humble. It can't be too hard, our pets seem to have mastered it.
- The pain of coming into the light (love) is that it not only exposes our faults but also our needs.
- If we never take the risk to expose who we are to others (and even to ourselves) we forfeit the chance to be loved for who we are by others and ourselves. What better definition of peace is there than to be fully who we are and to be fully loved by others and ourself. This is heaven. The furnishings are irrelevant. 'We shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.'
- Jesus encountered three sets of people. One group errored on the side of being right, another on the side of love, and another on the side of money. His reaction to each was drastically different. The only ones that got off easy were the ones that errored on the side of love, because they were the risk takers. They were not after safety as the other two. Love is anything but safe. However, love is what everyone wants deep down. Safety is about self. Being right says that God will reward me. Being rich says I will take care of myself. Love says that there is no safety in not getting your most basic need and so they are willing to be vulnerable. Love is the only one of the three positions that can reach out to others. Why is the whole christian community striving to be right and the world striving to be rich when what they both need at their core is love? Fear of risk
- The lack of love was more painful than the beatings. Is there anything worse than not being loved?
- I fear people with intimacy problems (and have intense anger toward them) because mom used it as a weapon. Dad was intensely passionate, yet mom withheld herself emotionally. She submitted to every whim of his without any grip but her heart was not in it. This left him with no grounds to complain about his intense unmet needs for intimacy. She would even submit to sex anytime he asked, I'm sure, but would withhold her heart in the process. This way, she could blame him for being a typical immoral restless man that can never be satsified. This is terrifying because I had to watch Dad live in a prison deprived of the one thing that he needed the most, the thing he never got from his own mom. Nothing is more cruel. Mom got to self-righteously take out all her anger against men on him without blame. The more he suffered, the more she could justify her opinion of men and her cruel behavior.
- Fear of intimacy and fear of rejection are two sides of the same coin. Both place the relationship on a pedestal. Fear of intimacy is a fear that the relationship will control their life, just as fear of rejection. Both are lack of proper boundaries so both fear control by the other person. Many times, fear of intimacy is fear that when a person gives everything to a relationship that it won't be enough - fear of rejection. Usually that is a self fulfilled prophesy because they offer everything to the relationship except intimacy so the other is unfullfilled regardless of their tireless efforts. Both fears take control of the relationship instead of turning it over to God - to participate in faith. Both fears inflict pain on the other person.
- The Lord seems to be taking me through each step of the path individually so I can see each one clearly. First, physical romance with (name), then the relationship was changed to platonic so I could see the emotional part isolated. I knew that the emotional part was the major part for me, but I was still amazed at how little the relationship changed without the physical. Now, God has isolated me from (name) so I can see the next phase, love of life, more clearly. I am ashamed to admit that this is new ground for me even though I have always had a passion for the Creator.
- Correction: Romance, emotional and physical, is not a pitfall to be avoided in our search for divine passion - it is part of the path. The danger comes in getting stuck at either the first step (physical) or the second (emotional) and not moving on to passion for life and ultimatly, passion for the Creator of life. The devil tries to get us stuck at the first step which ultimatly leads to perversion because it cannot fully satisfy or the second leading to emotional perversion, such as codependency, leading to multiple relationships because it cannot fully satisfy. Some people waste their whole lives in these two steps. As C. S. Lewis said, the harlot on the street is closer to God than the dead christian in the pew.
- In order to discover the passionate life God has for me, I have to pass the trap door of sex to get to Him. In order to break free from the society, I have to be able to choose to close that door without turning off my sexuality. If I cannot have control of the door, God cannot pour His passion into me. It will just leak out into sex, because the more passionate He makes me, the more sexual He makes me. Discipline is not the answer. Lots of fallen clerics can attest to that. The devil has geared all of society to channel it's passion into sex in order to block us from God. God needs to be as real and specific as sex. I can't even control the trap door when all I have on the other side is fantasy. What will I do when I have a wife? If I can't control this, I and (name) cannot pour our passion into each other in a spiritually intense relationship. this one point is key to having a deep spiritual passionate life -the life that is to be our ministry - to pull people to God and to heal. How many mental and emotional issues could be solved by being able to control this trap door? How powerful could a person be if they could have control of this door? Lord, please show me. This one point is the basic foundation of all I am to be about. This ability will be what draws people to You through me. This path to God is not some cruel trick of satan. It was designed by God. The passion of marriage is a symbol of the passion of our relationship with God. The instinct desire for a mate stirs our soul and flies in the face of the left-brained analytical man-made answer of evolution. Once we have a taste of the good stuff, first through nature and then through relationships we are to hunger for more because these two cannot satisfy. It awakens us to a hunger for the Divine.
- I need to learn to, by faith, accept love in ways other than I normally accept it.
- The biggest threat to a false perspective is love. Love drives us to question our beliefs and face our fears.
- I know that this is not the first time to have this point made clear to me and surely not the last. I am encapable of love without God. I am only capable of need. All my relationships, including with God, are motivated and measured by need. Help me Lord to truly love You and others. Even on my most 'holy' moments of desiring You so intently above all else, I realize that it is mostly made up of need. The need to have identity, purpose, and to have my needy hole filled. Transferring my needs from people to You does not make me more holy. Guide me to love. To do for You and others regardless of how if benefits me. To do it honestly and not out of duty. Help me to love You through obedience. Help me to know You better so I can love You more. Help me to trust You better. My view of You is not that positive.
- Some see unconditional love as a goal - some perfect standard to strive for. I believe it is the only form of love. Everything else is self-gratification.
- Please direct me Lord to purify my motives for desiring You.
- As you have directed through (name), help us to approach intimacy with each other, not just as foreplay, but as a chance to learn more about non-verbal communication. Help us to learn this as a means not only of communicating with each other, but as a means of meditative worship so that we can communicate with You. I consecrate my desire for (name), that You gave me, to You to use as You see fit.
- 'Discouragement is disillusioned self-love , and self-love may be love for my devotion to Jesus - not love for Jesus Himself.' August 18 The Utmost for His Highest
- The blessing of (name)'s love is so overwhelming. But the minute I focus on it, the love turns to need and ultimately to self-gratification. there is no commitment in self-gratification. The same pattern hold's true for God's love. Help me Lord not to fall in love with love. Help me Lord to crave You and not Your love.
- Why would the Lord be so scarce at a time when I am struggling so hard to keep my relationship with (name) in it's proper place? Maybe because one show of love is to wait patiently at the door of my Savior who is not answering immediately even though (name)'s door is always open.
- I have seen this statement two days in a row so I record it - 'Love provides all you need. You do not need to learn anything else'.
- I can now put a label on my longings. Love. In every form. I need a much more playful and less critical heart to enjoy it.
- Ever since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, intimacy has had to fight for existence due to self-awareness (pride).
- When I am the most blind, I am arrogant. When I see better, I am overcome with self-loathing and love toward me is humbling and even humiliating. But when I see clearly (or as clearly as I've seen so far) I am overcome with divine passion, loving what God loves, etc. At that point, I gain some of the original innocense back and can walk with God in the cool of the evening without clothes and totally focused on Him.
- Help us Lord to see each other's skin glow as the result of Your glory. As C. S. Lewis said, if we could see each other in the true light that God has created us in, we would be tempted to worshp each other.
- To approach God with needs as a primary interest is not intimate. That would be like me, eager to marry (name), saying 'Oh boy, no more TV dinners!'. My interest with (name) is (name) herself. To find intimacy with God requires intimacy with others. 'When I was naked you clothed me, when I was hungry, you fed me, when I was thirsty you gave me drink. When did we do that, my Lord? When you did it to the least of these.' Help me Lord to find intimacy as You lead me from focusing on self.
- 'We shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.' So this path towards intimacy is not out of the way of my journey to find myself. Once I see You fully, I will see myself fully. Then I will be able to love (You, myself, and others) more fully. It seems that You have set the entire group, including (name) on the same journey of intimacy. As by Jesus' example, I will find intimacy with You through intimacy with others. A hermit has not identity because our identity largely consists of how we interact with others.
- The most painful part of the restrictions is that by not knowing who I am, it prevents me from knowing who You, (name) and others are. I cannot love without an identity because I cannot love You or others without being able to love myself. 'Till We Have Faces'
- May 8 - My Utmost for His Highest - I am your arrow and the tension that I feel will be the energy that will send me into flight in the direction that You choose. The tension caused by the binds set on me as a small child that stole my identity before it could be formed. As You stir my passion even more for You, it increases the tension against the restrictions that bind me. But just as with the restrictions of waiting to marry (name), I will not flee the passion but run headlong into it because the pain is worth the intimacy, however limited it is under the restrictions. Help me Lord to be at peace with the pain knowing that it is in Your control so that I can give up the added burden of stress. Thank You for the love for You and (name) that increases the tension on the binds. Help me not to have a rebellious heart by turning to anger.
- For this time, God has said to me, 'I offer intimacy, I offer nothing else.'
- How does intimacy look like without God? To desire, to hurt, to long for, to enjoy, to hate, to pursue what God does. I want Your vision Lord. 'Deliver me Lord from the hand of the wicked.' He is not primarily after hurting me. He wants to put my soul to sleep.
- Oh Lord, thank You for those group hugs where when (name) and I are talking about You, or nothing in particular, and Your Spirit comes over us. We feel Your love and love toward each other so intently, all at the same time. It's so reassuring in so many ways. Now I understand Your hugs better. You ar simply opening up my heart. Tenderizing it for a moment so that I can feel love more clearly, more intently. And since my heart is more tender to feel Your love, it naturally is more tender to feel (name)'s love. So the divine hugs are going to be group hugs from now on. How wonderful. I always thought that Your hugs were You just pouring Your love down on me. But love is not a commodity to be given. It is a state of heart to be experienced. Help me Lord to have a soft heart so that the transition to the group hugs will become less and less. Perhaps as You soften my heart, I will experience love more with others also. Sometimes, I shudder at the selectiveness of my love. But by this definition of Your love, when I am less loving toward others, I am less loving toward You and (name). Religion has no place where such intense love dwells. Lord, help me to look at myself, and others, the way that You do, at the heart. I can't do it as You can, but as I do it with Your help, I know that I will be less judgemental. As with Job, You use trials to soften hearts, sometimes (Job 23:16). May I hide Your Word in my heart and not my head. You promise gladness to us when we keep our heart soft (righteous) (Psalms 97:11) Thank You Lord that we live in the day of the fulfilling of the prophesy mentioned throughout Ezekial of giving us Your Spirit and a heart of flesh. Help me not to take such an awsome gift for granted. This is how You develop me to be the person that You intended. The guitar, hiking and house-building are only tools to that end. Only then can I fully experience 'righteousness, peace, and joy'. With a pure heart, I will see You without the religious trappings (Matthew 5:8) I ask forgivenesss for taking Your tasks to be beneath me. Help me to follow Your humble example.
- I John 3:18-21 By loving others we silence self-condemnation. The loving comes first, not the getting the act together. Only without self-condemnation and with dwelling in God's love do we free ourselves to receive God's blessings. Help me Lord to stop struggling and rejoice in Your love by living out in love who You made me to be.
- Without love, my life is a pathetic emptiness. I pray, Lord, that You bring meaning and purpose to life by filling it with Your love.
- When I examine my feelings for God, and for others including a wife that I desire yet does not exist, I only see need, gratitude and validation. I am not capable of love. It has to be a gift from God.
- My desire to be loved for who I am and not for what I do by others, by me and by God. I cannot accept that love unless I can first love me even though I already know God loves me this way. Without my own love, it all seems like platitudes. My control to make that desire to happen is pretty much non-existent. The space between the desire and control, intent, is the holy ground where I meet with God. Lord help me not to sexualize that desire but to consecrate it to You.
- Does it make sense for non-christians to be critical of christians who are critical of them? Neither understands love.
- I see people for how useful they are to me rather than how useful I am to them. Therefore, my love for people varies dramatically from person to person even at first sight.
- Did the world leave me or did I leave the world? I have to admit that when I am swallowed up in the pain of loneliness, I am looking at very specific types of relationships to fix it. That makes me self-centered as I look at love as a commodity to be obtained. Of course, the self-centeredness perpetuates the problem and makes me more lonely.
- Too often, my love for God and others is only as strong as my comprehension of how much I can and do benefit from You and them. I fear that this is mostly 'wood, hay, and stubble'.
- I want to understand love better, but am afraid to ask God for it. With what little comprehension I have of love, I now fear it more than desire it.
- I have no idea what love is. I suspect I am not alone. When I hear others talk about it, they describe receiving warm fuzzy feelings. When I read about it in the Bible, it talks about unselfish giving - anything but warm and fuzzy.
- I am ashamed to admit that when I focus onto my love for God and try to grab hold of it, I can find very little tangible about it. It evaporates as a mist. I can find little more than gratitude for all the wonderful guidance that He has given. It is doubly frightening to realize that my comprehension of God's love for me can only be as strong as my love for God. I know that I would charge into a burning building to save this journal. Is my love for the insights in this journal the same as love for God? Am I no better than a self-centered toddler who, when offered a teddy bear during a difficult time, snatches it forcefully and hugs it desparately with no awareness of it's surroundings?
- I tell God that my life is void of love and to help me. He puts it on my heart to help someone who neither appreciates it nor even feels that they need it. My only benefit is that I see that they are helped by it even though they cannot. Love is not necessarily a warm fuzzy feeling. Sometimes, it is very painful, and yes, even lonely. For example, the cross. It is as if God has stripped love naked of all the things I thought were love so that I could see it for what it really is.
- Help me Lord to be awake to the opportunities throughout the day to immerse myself in Your love by seeing chances to fulfill needs in others.
- Is it wrong to desire to be loveable? I can accept that I am loved by God and that a few love me because of God in me. I can accept that God's love ellevates my status from maid to princess like Cinderella. I desire more than anything else to be loved because I am loveable. This is why I desire the love of a wife and do not desire God's love. His love is so great that He loves me regardless. The shunning I get from the world seems to verify this. The Sermon on the Mount shows what we should be, comforts us for seeing that and not being able to attain it and showing God's unconditional love so brightly by showing that it is undeserved. Even if I did have a wife, wouldn't she find me loveable because of what God's love has made me? Is this a 'chicken or the egg' situation? If I can accept that I am unloveable and that all I have comes from God, I can immerse myself in God's love as it flows in me, to others, to me, and to God. Help me, Lord to accept Your love undeserved. If I crave love to bolster my self-esteem, I am no diferent than the desparate women who dress in compromising, rediculous clothes to snag a man. In this light, validation is no longer required.
- My love for God seems to be pretty much just a pile of deep unfulfilled longings that I know the world can't meet.
- Love is not a means to an end, it is an end in itself. Gerald May p.236 The Awakened Heart
- In II John 5,6 it says that we should love one another. We show that love by following God's commandments. These commandments are summed up in loving one another. This tells me that I can show my love and gratitude to God and others by making a conscious effort to be more loving. To look for opportunites to love. This requires me to always be alert and not caught up in the business and details of life. Proverbs says that he that hurries sins. This is because when I rush, I am only thinking of myself.
- 'And I have no doubt that God is rendered inexpressibly happy in each instant, so tenderly pleased, when one single human heart, in the tiniest little glance, knows it's own longing for love, because that longing is God's own.' p.140 The Awakened Heart
- 'The soul must long for God in order to be set aflame by God's love; but if the soul cannot yet feel this longing, then it must long for the longing. To long for the longing is also from God.' Meister Eckhart
- I John 3:16-24 talks about love. God is love. Jesus Christ expressed that love and therefore is an example to us. When we follow that example and love others, in real action, we are loving God. Also, we are loving ourselves and the self condemnation stops. This opens us up to expressing ourselves more openly and boldly to God and to receiving His love directly.
- Love is not a skill nor is it a means to an end.
- -Shame kills intimacy.' p.184 Sacred Romance
- Your divine love is the only love that is capable of filling the immence hole in my heart left by a lifetime of systematic rejection. I suspect that my pain is a permanent fixture to draw me to You stronger than others so that I can see You even more. I pray that Your love could touch my core pain at least enough to allow me to see myself as loveable. To see myself as Cinderella, the princess, rather than Cinderella, the maid. That I would not just sit in the cellar clutching a glass slipper. Help me to stop wishing for something that I already have. I really had a good time at the Ball but what I really want is to go home with You and be held.
- I think my Message of the Arrows (Sacred Romance) is that I am not loveable. My fantasies about a wife involve someone who validates me by being excited about being with me. I can accept that God is loving, but I cannot accept that I am loveable. This is why I don't feel that in all the ways that God has shown His love for me (ecstacy, peace, guidance, and blessings) that He has reached the core of my aching need. This is the source of my depression and resignation. No one cares. No one should.
- When I think of the possibility that I may never have a wife, I shudder due to the fear that a very passionate part of myself will never be allowed to express itself. But when I think about it, I know that giving up that fanctasy and pursuing God is the only way that I can fully express that passionate part of myself.
- Now I know why I shunned Your hugs. I know I was disappointed that they did not fix my pain to the extent that I thought they should, but that was a selfish perspective. Why I was disappointed in Your hugs is that I didn't see that Your hugs was an opportunity to hug You back.
- All of this writing is about me. What about You? With all due respect, how are You doing?
- Grace, by definition, is free.
- In my self pity, I become self-centered as I demand love in the way that I want it and so can't see it in the way that You give it.
- Perhaps Your love would be more evident if my sins were more evident to myself.
- Perhaps I don't see Your love when I am so wrapped up in self pity for earthly love that I don't see my need for Your love nor do I see You offer Your love through other people.
- I know that it is Your intent to show Your love through the pain, not only to me, but to the world. but how?
- It is hard to trust You Lord to love me because I do not believe it is Your intent to fill the huge hole left by a lifetime void of love.
- I rely on You, Lord, to give me the strength to remain empty, with patience, waiting to be filled by You.
- 'Love's all around me but I'm looking for an event. Thank goodness it never found me. It would have been the end.' Stevie Ray Vaughan
- Trust is the supreme expression of love and so pleases God more than anything else.
- Trust cannot be generated by us. It comes by letting ourselves be loved by Jesus as we come face to face with Him dying on the cross.
- Self pity prevents self-acceptance and is the arch-enemy of trust.
- Compassion requires and is automatically inspired by living in the moment.
- Those that seek love for the sake of security have no taste for what love has to offer. Love and security are not even distant cousins. Love is like a wild stallion. We grab his mane and hang on for dear life and as it takes control, we find that peace is found only in fulfillment.
- Can we love God unconditionally, without expectations?
- In order to love truly, we need to understand what true love is and how short we fall from it. It is rare for me to find someone who thinks that they are a loving person who really is. To see true love is to be humbled by it.
- Our ability to experience love is directly proportional to our vulnerability
- We wish to love more. We are surprised through circumstances at our limited ability to care. Do we start working our issues which are all designed to block us from loving? No, that would just turn into an endless narcissistic obsession. We ask God to make us more loving. When we become more loving, the source of many of our issues become irrelevant. Besides, as our love grows, we will inevitably see more and more issues.
-In the past, only conditional love, love that I had earned, was what I desired. Now, that kind of love is not allowed in my presence. I can only trust unconditional love. Only those that love me when I am unloveable can love me when I am 'good'.
- How can light (love) be conditional? It can only be blocked by issues, etc.
- Conditional love requires us to be healed in order to receive it. Therfore, only unconditional love can heal. Everything else is just behavior modification.
- Love me when I am not loveable. That is when I need it the most.
- Fear is the worst vice. Love is the cure. 'Perfect love casts out fear.'
- How can we have true compassion for anyone whom we think we are better than? 'Take the beam...' This requires us not only to see our own faults more clearly, but to see the good in the other person.
- It is impossible to love without brokeness - the giving up of our expectations.
- Our ability to love is directly proportional to our willingness to see our own faults. Otherwise, when those that are around us complain, we have to ignore them in defensiveness or blame them for it.
- Honesty in private is like love in private. It does not count unless it involves someone else.
- Is our heart big enough that our passion for love is as big as our passion for justice?
- Help me Lord not to love through expectations.
- Oh Lord, help us to choose love over safety.
- A good show of love is our willingness to step outside of our comfort zone.
- The Lord's prayer - what is the vision? 'Thy kingdom come' - is it not talking about love as the ruling force? 'Forgive me as I forgive others' - is it not fighting against attacks on love? Love is the point.
- Puppies are easy to love because they have no ego. They depend on me and we are OK with that. This makes them free not only to receive love, but to give it back in bucketfuls.
- You can either be in control or in love. Everyone has to make that choice. Even God had to make that choice.
- Love and freedom do not go together.
- Help me Lord to love people in their own language. Only then is it truly giving.
- Intimacy cannot exist with independence.
- Love is prophetic.
- Soon spiritual love will be able to sit at the table with other loves.
- Pain hurts the most when it draws us inward. When it leads to self-pity and isolation.
There is no relief, but it does hurt less when we allow the pain to sensitize (enlarge) our hearts. Our pain allows us first to connect with others that share the same pain and ultimately with anyone that is hurting. It is the one thing we all have in common. And somehow, when it is shared in love and not bitterness, it becomes easier to bear. The ointment of the great physician is love which is neither given or received, but shared, because we do not own it.
- You can only see light (love) when it touches something.
- Love gives out. Need draws in. Love frees ourselves and others. Need controls. Love is courageous. Need is fearful.
- If love is real then we must bow to it for it is the core of life. Lord, help me to submit to it's disruptions. Help me to have the faith to let go of the religious control that stifles it and the courage to let You express it fully through me.
- Confusion is very rarely a lack of information but a lack of heart.
- Need takes what it can get. Love expects more. It does not explain itself.
- Love is the healing power, not the gifts. Jesus 'manifested' Himself in love through gifts not the other way around. Sometimes no miracles were required, such as with the prostitute. She found the love that she was craving in Him.
- When we use the power of our gifts to escape the pain and humiliation of life, are we substituting our depest desire of love for admiration? Are we hiding behind our gifts afraid of being mocked before others because we no longer like ourselves like Adam and Eve? The admiration is much easier on the pride than compassion for our struggles. But this is what I crave. That is why a spouse is so needed. A safe place to come apart. However, a marriage relationship shouldn't just be a place to dump. It is humiliating as one that needs help and one that helps others, that the root of all complicated issues is a need for love and the lack of humility to receive it.
- Love is directly proportional to humility.
- Unconditional love is the only love ther is. Everything else is need.
- Without perfect love (a limited heart) we have fear that God is not loving enough to take care of us. This is neediness which draws our heart inward to self and so it is a vicious cycle. We have to pray for God to make us loving.
- We cannot give charity with true dignity to the person we are giving it to unless we can receive charity with true gratefulness through humility. Charity has become a dirty word in our society when spoken of from the receiving perspective - 'I don't take charity!'. Independence is a prized virtue in our society. It will be so in a society that judges the quality of life based on material things and therefore ranks people's importance based on how much they own.
- Help me Lord to love myself as I am instead of setting high standards for myself. The more the Spirit moves in me the higher my expectations. This is how Dad 'loved' me. But I need to love myself as I am instead of any abilities and what I do. This will allow me to be more patient with others. When I can love myself, I can not only love others better, but I can receive love better, from God and others.
- Our service to God speaks loder to God and others when it involves sacrifice. David said, 'I will not offer to God what costs me nothing.'
- Jesus was not just for the apostles, the apostles were for Jesus. THey dropped the ball sometimes and angels had to take up the slack, but that should not be necessary.
- The Lord has been enlarging my heart to love difficult people from (name), to (name), to (name), to (name), to (name), to (name), and now the most difficult of all, me. I am below average competency in life in general, low intelligence, clumsy, shy, fearful, easily frustrated, depressed, old and needy.
- Abundant living can only come from loving others. The only way to love others is through a full understanding of God's grace. This only comes through a full understanding of our selfishness that demands that He make our life more comfortable. p68 Who You Are
- Our ability to love and care for others is directly related to our ability to perceive God's love for us. p.146 Pathways I Timothy 5:8 - Those that do not care for their own families are worse than an infidel. How can we be christians when our loved ones are in daycare and nursing homes? All love we then give to others must then be questioned as motivated by selfishness. When we take care of others, it is a ministry. When we take care of our own, it is seen more as an obligation.
- The more sexual our society gets, the more distant it gets because it does not allow legitimate forms of love. The more distant it gets, the more needy it gets and therefore the more sexual it gets.
- Our God is only as loving as we are. Of course, I am referring to our perception. We are only able to receive love to the extent that we can give it. Our view of God is a reflection of ourself. Trials bring us to the limitation of our love. That is why God seems so cruel and insensitive to our suffering. This is why trials either expand our love or decreases it, depending on how we react to them. When we reach out to God, we automatically reach out to others. When we withdraw from God, we withdraw from others.
- (name) love me for what I can do for him. (name) loves me at a distance because her perception of my love for her is so limited. Thank You Lord for showing me how You feel a little. Forgive me for the pain that I cause.
- Lord, help me to not let my desire for adoration to prevent me from receiving love without trying to elevate myself.
- I have always heard people say that there are three kinds of love - brotherly love, romantic love, and Godly love. There are only two -brotherly love (philio) and divine love (agape). Romantic love is translated agape. 'Love your neighbor as yourself' is also agape. We do worse than the Greeks to put romantic love in anything other than a spiritual light. Sex is the uniting of spirits. Ephesians 5:25 (Eros) is not in the Bible.
- The closest I have seen of love is people sacrificially giving in order to better themselves and further develop their gifts. Is that not my motives? Is love forgotten? Can it be found?
- I picture in my mind a group of people that I know the most. I pick from that group one of the people that I love most and one that I love least. The difference between the two is need. I can only love any of the others in the group as much as I love the one that I love the least. That is how 'fleshy' my heart is.
- Compassion kills codependency. Psalms 32:2 talks about guile (deceit, sloth). It then talks about confession and it's healing and about following His Spirit without a bridle. Our sould is the clothing of our spirit. Help me Lord that it is not fig leaves before You or others. p.10 Elijah Task
- There are those who say, 'You are too sensitive. The world is a hard place. You need to toughen up and protect yourself'. I will not. I would rather suffer the wounds of others that have followed that advice rather than be as they are. If I shut out life in order to survive it, what's the point?
- Most people dish out so-called love based on the other person's ability to contribute to their comfort. Wouldn't it make more sense to dish out love based on the other's ability to receive it? Or would that be self-centered also? Would it be wrong to give love to those that are not able to receive it? Jesus died for all. The question is, 'Can we do that and keep our boundaries?'. Only if we do it from God's perspective. The root of codependency is neediness or selfishness. A truly happy person is one who can love freely. An empty person cannot do this. Or can he? Didn't the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 show that we receive by giving? Lord, show me opportunities to give love. There has to be more than I can do. Help me, Lord, to give with a cheerful heart and not out of duty because duty just further drains me. Is this why the world is so full of needy, empty people - everyone is trying to meet their own needs? God prefers to meet our needs through others. It keeps us close and humble. It can't be too hard, our pets seem to have mastered it.
- The pain of coming into the light (love) is that it not only exposes our faults but also our needs.
- If we never take the risk to expose who we are to others (and even to ourselves) we forfeit the chance to be loved for who we are by others and ourselves. What better definition of peace is there than to be fully who we are and to be fully loved by others and ourself. This is heaven. The furnishings are irrelevant. 'We shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.'
- Jesus encountered three sets of people. One group errored on the side of being right, another on the side of love, and another on the side of money. His reaction to each was drastically different. The only ones that got off easy were the ones that errored on the side of love, because they were the risk takers. They were not after safety as the other two. Love is anything but safe. However, love is what everyone wants deep down. Safety is about self. Being right says that God will reward me. Being rich says I will take care of myself. Love says that there is no safety in not getting your most basic need and so they are willing to be vulnerable. Love is the only one of the three positions that can reach out to others. Why is the whole christian community striving to be right and the world striving to be rich when what they both need at their core is love? Fear of risk
- The lack of love was more painful than the beatings. Is there anything worse than not being loved?
- I fear people with intimacy problems (and have intense anger toward them) because mom used it as a weapon. Dad was intensely passionate, yet mom withheld herself emotionally. She submitted to every whim of his without any grip but her heart was not in it. This left him with no grounds to complain about his intense unmet needs for intimacy. She would even submit to sex anytime he asked, I'm sure, but would withhold her heart in the process. This way, she could blame him for being a typical immoral restless man that can never be satsified. This is terrifying because I had to watch Dad live in a prison deprived of the one thing that he needed the most, the thing he never got from his own mom. Nothing is more cruel. Mom got to self-righteously take out all her anger against men on him without blame. The more he suffered, the more she could justify her opinion of men and her cruel behavior.
- Fear of intimacy and fear of rejection are two sides of the same coin. Both place the relationship on a pedestal. Fear of intimacy is a fear that the relationship will control their life, just as fear of rejection. Both are lack of proper boundaries so both fear control by the other person. Many times, fear of intimacy is fear that when a person gives everything to a relationship that it won't be enough - fear of rejection. Usually that is a self fulfilled prophesy because they offer everything to the relationship except intimacy so the other is unfullfilled regardless of their tireless efforts. Both fears take control of the relationship instead of turning it over to God - to participate in faith. Both fears inflict pain on the other person.
- The Lord seems to be taking me through each step of the path individually so I can see each one clearly. First, physical romance with (name), then the relationship was changed to platonic so I could see the emotional part isolated. I knew that the emotional part was the major part for me, but I was still amazed at how little the relationship changed without the physical. Now, God has isolated me from (name) so I can see the next phase, love of life, more clearly. I am ashamed to admit that this is new ground for me even though I have always had a passion for the Creator.
- Correction: Romance, emotional and physical, is not a pitfall to be avoided in our search for divine passion - it is part of the path. The danger comes in getting stuck at either the first step (physical) or the second (emotional) and not moving on to passion for life and ultimatly, passion for the Creator of life. The devil tries to get us stuck at the first step which ultimatly leads to perversion because it cannot fully satisfy or the second leading to emotional perversion, such as codependency, leading to multiple relationships because it cannot fully satisfy. Some people waste their whole lives in these two steps. As C. S. Lewis said, the harlot on the street is closer to God than the dead christian in the pew.
- In order to discover the passionate life God has for me, I have to pass the trap door of sex to get to Him. In order to break free from the society, I have to be able to choose to close that door without turning off my sexuality. If I cannot have control of the door, God cannot pour His passion into me. It will just leak out into sex, because the more passionate He makes me, the more sexual He makes me. Discipline is not the answer. Lots of fallen clerics can attest to that. The devil has geared all of society to channel it's passion into sex in order to block us from God. God needs to be as real and specific as sex. I can't even control the trap door when all I have on the other side is fantasy. What will I do when I have a wife? If I can't control this, I and (name) cannot pour our passion into each other in a spiritually intense relationship. this one point is key to having a deep spiritual passionate life -the life that is to be our ministry - to pull people to God and to heal. How many mental and emotional issues could be solved by being able to control this trap door? How powerful could a person be if they could have control of this door? Lord, please show me. This one point is the basic foundation of all I am to be about. This ability will be what draws people to You through me. This path to God is not some cruel trick of satan. It was designed by God. The passion of marriage is a symbol of the passion of our relationship with God. The instinct desire for a mate stirs our soul and flies in the face of the left-brained analytical man-made answer of evolution. Once we have a taste of the good stuff, first through nature and then through relationships we are to hunger for more because these two cannot satisfy. It awakens us to a hunger for the Divine.
- I need to learn to, by faith, accept love in ways other than I normally accept it.
- The biggest threat to a false perspective is love. Love drives us to question our beliefs and face our fears.
- I know that this is not the first time to have this point made clear to me and surely not the last. I am encapable of love without God. I am only capable of need. All my relationships, including with God, are motivated and measured by need. Help me Lord to truly love You and others. Even on my most 'holy' moments of desiring You so intently above all else, I realize that it is mostly made up of need. The need to have identity, purpose, and to have my needy hole filled. Transferring my needs from people to You does not make me more holy. Guide me to love. To do for You and others regardless of how if benefits me. To do it honestly and not out of duty. Help me to love You through obedience. Help me to know You better so I can love You more. Help me to trust You better. My view of You is not that positive.
- Some see unconditional love as a goal - some perfect standard to strive for. I believe it is the only form of love. Everything else is self-gratification.
- Please direct me Lord to purify my motives for desiring You.
- As you have directed through (name), help us to approach intimacy with each other, not just as foreplay, but as a chance to learn more about non-verbal communication. Help us to learn this as a means not only of communicating with each other, but as a means of meditative worship so that we can communicate with You. I consecrate my desire for (name), that You gave me, to You to use as You see fit.
- 'Discouragement is disillusioned self-love , and self-love may be love for my devotion to Jesus - not love for Jesus Himself.' August 18 The Utmost for His Highest
- The blessing of (name)'s love is so overwhelming. But the minute I focus on it, the love turns to need and ultimately to self-gratification. there is no commitment in self-gratification. The same pattern hold's true for God's love. Help me Lord not to fall in love with love. Help me Lord to crave You and not Your love.
- Why would the Lord be so scarce at a time when I am struggling so hard to keep my relationship with (name) in it's proper place? Maybe because one show of love is to wait patiently at the door of my Savior who is not answering immediately even though (name)'s door is always open.
- I have seen this statement two days in a row so I record it - 'Love provides all you need. You do not need to learn anything else'.
- I can now put a label on my longings. Love. In every form. I need a much more playful and less critical heart to enjoy it.
- Ever since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, intimacy has had to fight for existence due to self-awareness (pride).
- When I am the most blind, I am arrogant. When I see better, I am overcome with self-loathing and love toward me is humbling and even humiliating. But when I see clearly (or as clearly as I've seen so far) I am overcome with divine passion, loving what God loves, etc. At that point, I gain some of the original innocense back and can walk with God in the cool of the evening without clothes and totally focused on Him.
- Help us Lord to see each other's skin glow as the result of Your glory. As C. S. Lewis said, if we could see each other in the true light that God has created us in, we would be tempted to worshp each other.
- To approach God with needs as a primary interest is not intimate. That would be like me, eager to marry (name), saying 'Oh boy, no more TV dinners!'. My interest with (name) is (name) herself. To find intimacy with God requires intimacy with others. 'When I was naked you clothed me, when I was hungry, you fed me, when I was thirsty you gave me drink. When did we do that, my Lord? When you did it to the least of these.' Help me Lord to find intimacy as You lead me from focusing on self.
- 'We shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.' So this path towards intimacy is not out of the way of my journey to find myself. Once I see You fully, I will see myself fully. Then I will be able to love (You, myself, and others) more fully. It seems that You have set the entire group, including (name) on the same journey of intimacy. As by Jesus' example, I will find intimacy with You through intimacy with others. A hermit has not identity because our identity largely consists of how we interact with others.
- The most painful part of the restrictions is that by not knowing who I am, it prevents me from knowing who You, (name) and others are. I cannot love without an identity because I cannot love You or others without being able to love myself. 'Till We Have Faces'
- May 8 - My Utmost for His Highest - I am your arrow and the tension that I feel will be the energy that will send me into flight in the direction that You choose. The tension caused by the binds set on me as a small child that stole my identity before it could be formed. As You stir my passion even more for You, it increases the tension against the restrictions that bind me. But just as with the restrictions of waiting to marry (name), I will not flee the passion but run headlong into it because the pain is worth the intimacy, however limited it is under the restrictions. Help me Lord to be at peace with the pain knowing that it is in Your control so that I can give up the added burden of stress. Thank You for the love for You and (name) that increases the tension on the binds. Help me not to have a rebellious heart by turning to anger.
- For this time, God has said to me, 'I offer intimacy, I offer nothing else.'
- How does intimacy look like without God? To desire, to hurt, to long for, to enjoy, to hate, to pursue what God does. I want Your vision Lord. 'Deliver me Lord from the hand of the wicked.' He is not primarily after hurting me. He wants to put my soul to sleep.
- Oh Lord, thank You for those group hugs where when (name) and I are talking about You, or nothing in particular, and Your Spirit comes over us. We feel Your love and love toward each other so intently, all at the same time. It's so reassuring in so many ways. Now I understand Your hugs better. You ar simply opening up my heart. Tenderizing it for a moment so that I can feel love more clearly, more intently. And since my heart is more tender to feel Your love, it naturally is more tender to feel (name)'s love. So the divine hugs are going to be group hugs from now on. How wonderful. I always thought that Your hugs were You just pouring Your love down on me. But love is not a commodity to be given. It is a state of heart to be experienced. Help me Lord to have a soft heart so that the transition to the group hugs will become less and less. Perhaps as You soften my heart, I will experience love more with others also. Sometimes, I shudder at the selectiveness of my love. But by this definition of Your love, when I am less loving toward others, I am less loving toward You and (name). Religion has no place where such intense love dwells. Lord, help me to look at myself, and others, the way that You do, at the heart. I can't do it as You can, but as I do it with Your help, I know that I will be less judgemental. As with Job, You use trials to soften hearts, sometimes (Job 23:16). May I hide Your Word in my heart and not my head. You promise gladness to us when we keep our heart soft (righteous) (Psalms 97:11) Thank You Lord that we live in the day of the fulfilling of the prophesy mentioned throughout Ezekial of giving us Your Spirit and a heart of flesh. Help me not to take such an awsome gift for granted. This is how You develop me to be the person that You intended. The guitar, hiking and house-building are only tools to that end. Only then can I fully experience 'righteousness, peace, and joy'. With a pure heart, I will see You without the religious trappings (Matthew 5:8) I ask forgivenesss for taking Your tasks to be beneath me. Help me to follow Your humble example.
- I John 3:18-21 By loving others we silence self-condemnation. The loving comes first, not the getting the act together. Only without self-condemnation and with dwelling in God's love do we free ourselves to receive God's blessings. Help me Lord to stop struggling and rejoice in Your love by living out in love who You made me to be.
- Without love, my life is a pathetic emptiness. I pray, Lord, that You bring meaning and purpose to life by filling it with Your love.
- When I examine my feelings for God, and for others including a wife that I desire yet does not exist, I only see need, gratitude and validation. I am not capable of love. It has to be a gift from God.
- My desire to be loved for who I am and not for what I do by others, by me and by God. I cannot accept that love unless I can first love me even though I already know God loves me this way. Without my own love, it all seems like platitudes. My control to make that desire to happen is pretty much non-existent. The space between the desire and control, intent, is the holy ground where I meet with God. Lord help me not to sexualize that desire but to consecrate it to You.
- Does it make sense for non-christians to be critical of christians who are critical of them? Neither understands love.
- I see people for how useful they are to me rather than how useful I am to them. Therefore, my love for people varies dramatically from person to person even at first sight.
- Did the world leave me or did I leave the world? I have to admit that when I am swallowed up in the pain of loneliness, I am looking at very specific types of relationships to fix it. That makes me self-centered as I look at love as a commodity to be obtained. Of course, the self-centeredness perpetuates the problem and makes me more lonely.
- Too often, my love for God and others is only as strong as my comprehension of how much I can and do benefit from You and them. I fear that this is mostly 'wood, hay, and stubble'.
- I want to understand love better, but am afraid to ask God for it. With what little comprehension I have of love, I now fear it more than desire it.
- I have no idea what love is. I suspect I am not alone. When I hear others talk about it, they describe receiving warm fuzzy feelings. When I read about it in the Bible, it talks about unselfish giving - anything but warm and fuzzy.
- I am ashamed to admit that when I focus onto my love for God and try to grab hold of it, I can find very little tangible about it. It evaporates as a mist. I can find little more than gratitude for all the wonderful guidance that He has given. It is doubly frightening to realize that my comprehension of God's love for me can only be as strong as my love for God. I know that I would charge into a burning building to save this journal. Is my love for the insights in this journal the same as love for God? Am I no better than a self-centered toddler who, when offered a teddy bear during a difficult time, snatches it forcefully and hugs it desparately with no awareness of it's surroundings?
- I tell God that my life is void of love and to help me. He puts it on my heart to help someone who neither appreciates it nor even feels that they need it. My only benefit is that I see that they are helped by it even though they cannot. Love is not necessarily a warm fuzzy feeling. Sometimes, it is very painful, and yes, even lonely. For example, the cross. It is as if God has stripped love naked of all the things I thought were love so that I could see it for what it really is.
- Help me Lord to be awake to the opportunities throughout the day to immerse myself in Your love by seeing chances to fulfill needs in others.
- Is it wrong to desire to be loveable? I can accept that I am loved by God and that a few love me because of God in me. I can accept that God's love ellevates my status from maid to princess like Cinderella. I desire more than anything else to be loved because I am loveable. This is why I desire the love of a wife and do not desire God's love. His love is so great that He loves me regardless. The shunning I get from the world seems to verify this. The Sermon on the Mount shows what we should be, comforts us for seeing that and not being able to attain it and showing God's unconditional love so brightly by showing that it is undeserved. Even if I did have a wife, wouldn't she find me loveable because of what God's love has made me? Is this a 'chicken or the egg' situation? If I can accept that I am unloveable and that all I have comes from God, I can immerse myself in God's love as it flows in me, to others, to me, and to God. Help me, Lord to accept Your love undeserved. If I crave love to bolster my self-esteem, I am no diferent than the desparate women who dress in compromising, rediculous clothes to snag a man. In this light, validation is no longer required.
- My love for God seems to be pretty much just a pile of deep unfulfilled longings that I know the world can't meet.
- Love is not a means to an end, it is an end in itself. Gerald May p.236 The Awakened Heart
- In II John 5,6 it says that we should love one another. We show that love by following God's commandments. These commandments are summed up in loving one another. This tells me that I can show my love and gratitude to God and others by making a conscious effort to be more loving. To look for opportunites to love. This requires me to always be alert and not caught up in the business and details of life. Proverbs says that he that hurries sins. This is because when I rush, I am only thinking of myself.
- 'And I have no doubt that God is rendered inexpressibly happy in each instant, so tenderly pleased, when one single human heart, in the tiniest little glance, knows it's own longing for love, because that longing is God's own.' p.140 The Awakened Heart
- 'The soul must long for God in order to be set aflame by God's love; but if the soul cannot yet feel this longing, then it must long for the longing. To long for the longing is also from God.' Meister Eckhart
- I John 3:16-24 talks about love. God is love. Jesus Christ expressed that love and therefore is an example to us. When we follow that example and love others, in real action, we are loving God. Also, we are loving ourselves and the self condemnation stops. This opens us up to expressing ourselves more openly and boldly to God and to receiving His love directly.
- Love is not a skill nor is it a means to an end.
- -Shame kills intimacy.' p.184 Sacred Romance
- Your divine love is the only love that is capable of filling the immence hole in my heart left by a lifetime of systematic rejection. I suspect that my pain is a permanent fixture to draw me to You stronger than others so that I can see You even more. I pray that Your love could touch my core pain at least enough to allow me to see myself as loveable. To see myself as Cinderella, the princess, rather than Cinderella, the maid. That I would not just sit in the cellar clutching a glass slipper. Help me to stop wishing for something that I already have. I really had a good time at the Ball but what I really want is to go home with You and be held.
- I think my Message of the Arrows (Sacred Romance) is that I am not loveable. My fantasies about a wife involve someone who validates me by being excited about being with me. I can accept that God is loving, but I cannot accept that I am loveable. This is why I don't feel that in all the ways that God has shown His love for me (ecstacy, peace, guidance, and blessings) that He has reached the core of my aching need. This is the source of my depression and resignation. No one cares. No one should.
- When I think of the possibility that I may never have a wife, I shudder due to the fear that a very passionate part of myself will never be allowed to express itself. But when I think about it, I know that giving up that fanctasy and pursuing God is the only way that I can fully express that passionate part of myself.
- Now I know why I shunned Your hugs. I know I was disappointed that they did not fix my pain to the extent that I thought they should, but that was a selfish perspective. Why I was disappointed in Your hugs is that I didn't see that Your hugs was an opportunity to hug You back.
- All of this writing is about me. What about You? With all due respect, how are You doing?
- Grace, by definition, is free.
- In my self pity, I become self-centered as I demand love in the way that I want it and so can't see it in the way that You give it.
- Perhaps Your love would be more evident if my sins were more evident to myself.
- Perhaps I don't see Your love when I am so wrapped up in self pity for earthly love that I don't see my need for Your love nor do I see You offer Your love through other people.
- I know that it is Your intent to show Your love through the pain, not only to me, but to the world. but how?
- It is hard to trust You Lord to love me because I do not believe it is Your intent to fill the huge hole left by a lifetime void of love.
- I rely on You, Lord, to give me the strength to remain empty, with patience, waiting to be filled by You.
- 'Love's all around me but I'm looking for an event. Thank goodness it never found me. It would have been the end.' Stevie Ray Vaughan
- Trust is the supreme expression of love and so pleases God more than anything else.
- Trust cannot be generated by us. It comes by letting ourselves be loved by Jesus as we come face to face with Him dying on the cross.
- Self pity prevents self-acceptance and is the arch-enemy of trust.
- Compassion requires and is automatically inspired by living in the moment.
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