“I’ll Love You if You Love Me”

You can feel it. The moment that sickly sweet feeling rises up in your chest. It oozes out of your mouth and through your actions. Sometimes the other person feels loved. But you know the truth.

You know that what you are giving them is not really a gift. It is not really life. And because our God is mind-blowing and good, He can produce life from your shriveled up actions and words. But you want something.

It’s love for selfish gain. Love for the purpose of control. Love that is not love at all.

And you’ve just dug those hooks into that other persons spirit and spit out demandingly “fill me with life”. You know they have no life to give but somehow their life looks more appealing than your life and you want it… all.

The symptoms reveal themselves in various forms. Asking someone how they are doing so they will ask back. Calling or texting to get friends together just so you won’t be alone for the evening. Never, ever, ever being alone. Or always, always, always being alone. Never inviting others into your home to change your normal flow of everyday living. Viewing any change as a disruption.

I’ve been thinking about this love stuff recently. I’ve been noticing how often we give our lives so that we’ll be loved back. I’ve been thinking that if I really believed God, I wouldn’t have to stick out hooks and desperately hope to be loved. Because I am already loved. Scandalously and beyond all that I can DO and even BE.

And if I actually believed I was loved, then I would be free… not needing anything else. Because afterall, I was BORN to be loved. Created to breathe in His kindness and purpose for me. Made to revel in intimacy. I would no longer have to wander from one person to the next looking for what I was designed for. I have been designed for Him. And when I snuggle my heart up close to His, then I can actually look at what He’s looking at, and care about what He’s caring about.

AND IT’S YOU! You are His heartbeat and somehow the completion of His heart.

“For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love”

So please, even in my halting and imperfect way, let me love you. Not so I can get love back. But because somehow, someday, I’ve got to give all this love away!