God’s love has never seemed fully unconditional to me.

Before, I used to try to find reasons for God loving me.

Before, there would always be something that I had done that I thought was good, simmering in the back of my mind to validate God’s reason to want to love me.

And in the moments I didn’t feel loved by God, I would do just the same finding all the reasons why God couldn’t possibly love me as much anymore.

But lately, I’ve been experiencing the love of the Lord in a way that doesn’t make sense to me. And it has come during a time where I haven’t had a lot of time to spend with God. It has come during a time when I have had so many things going on and not much free time.

I haven’t been able to do spiritual things that used to make me feel more at ease in my relationship with the Lord.

I haven’t been able to write for the past week and a half. At least the things that I usually like to write.

I haven’t been able to share my heart or experience the Lord teaching me a new thing. I feel like I’m in a lull…a dry place. Writer’s block. Spiritual block. Feeling like I haven’t done enough to maintain my spirituality. Feeling like I really have nothing to offer God.

But God has used this time in my life to reveal to me just how little I do to earn His love.

And for the first time I’ve been sensing the Lord saying…

…this is what it means for Me to love you unconditionally.

…this is what is means for Me to love you when you can’t find a reason for Me to want to love you.

I’m experiencing God’s love and pursuit of me even in the midst of not finding many reasons for Him to want to love me right now.

And it baffles me.

I just don’t get it.

Because I don’t feel as loveable right now honestly. I don’t feel like I have done enough. And though I know all of the theology regarding this and I know that God’s love is not based on my performance, I’m just being honest about how my mind works…and it constantly tries to make sense of what God thinks about me in relation to what I have done either good or bad. It’s a struggle for me.

And yet, I have experienced the love of God pursuing me in the past week in a way that I haven’t before…and it’s because of my inability to pursue Him that I have been made aware of His active pursuit of me.

Not doing anything that would justify Him loving me or being proud of me, I finally am experiencing and starting to understand this whole thing called unconditional love.

But it’s hard for me to accept.

I don’t like unconditional love.

Unconditional love makes me uneasy and nervous.

I feel almost guilty to receive it.

I feel unworthy. I feel like I don’t deserve it. I feel like if someone loves me or does something for me then I should be able to reciprocate that in a way that benefits and blesses that person as well. That’s what makes sense to me. So it’s hard for me to understand a love that would require me not giving anything back in return.

This has long been an issue for me even with other people. Not being able to receive from others in a way that’s unconditional. Not being able to let others help. Not being able to let others give to me. Or let others have control. I like to be the one who has control. I don’t like to feel indebted. And as I write this out, I’m kind of embarrassed as I’m seeing how messed up that is…it’s scary how convicting writing can be…and I don’t think I’ve ever taken time to deal with this issue before. I used to think that it was necessary to be the strong independent woman who doesn’t need a man or anyone for that matter to help her. I can do it all by myself thank you very much. But I’m growing tired of this mindset.

I’m finding myself resenting this desire….this desire to be the one who holds my life together…the one in charge.

Deep down, we all want someone to take care of us. We all want someone to step in and take control, but it’s so hard to relinquish it. It’s so difficult to trust someone else with your life. It is for me.

So as I experience the love of God loving me when I haven’t done anything in return I just don’t understand it and part of me doesn’t want it.

I’m scared to let God love me unconditionally.

I feel like it’s too good to be true.

That I will end up losing it somehow.

Or that I can never repay.

And I absolutely hate that feeling. I hate feeling like I can never reciprocate or give back.

Not too long ago I experienced a moment where someone was helping me with something. I don’t really want to elaborate but this person demonstrated kindness to me in a way that was both extremely caring and thoughtful but strangely very uncomfortable for me in the moment. And afterwards I began to consider why this was the case. Why was it that I was hesitant to receive the help that this person was giving me? In the moment I was so stunned that someone would help me in this way out of the blue that I didn’t know what to say or how to respond. I was very shocked. I didn’t really say a word. And I don’t think I said thank you in the way I now would have wanted. I didn’t know how to receive. That was the problem. I didn’t know how to be okay with someone else stepping in to do for me what I thought I should be doing for myself. And it remains a problem for me in many areas of my life.

Through this, God is illustrating to me what it looks like for His love to step in and do for me what I would normally just do myself. He’s loving me instead. He’s taking control instead. He’s taking care of me instead. I don’t have to be the one who holds it all together anymore. He will do that for me.

And wow, what a relief I’m now seeing this as.

I’m now finding beauty in this unconditional love of the Lord. This love that separates Him from all others. This love that puts my soul at ease.

1 John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”

This kind of love may bring me fear. I may not understand it. But God’s helping me. He’s showing me that I have no reason to fear.

I may not feel like I deserve it.

I may be hesitant to receive it.

But God’s still here.

He keeps offering anyways.

He won’t let me say no to Him.

He’s slowly but surely replacing my self-protective tendency to do everything myself with the reminder of His sovereignty and His competence.

I can trust that He won’t get it wrong. And I don’t have to try to do everything myself anymore. His love is enough to sustain me.

Now I’m learning how to receive.

Now I’m learning how to let the Lord be the strong one for me, even when everything within me wants to be the strong one instead. I don’t like giving up that control. But He’s showing me how.

And He’s using this point of my life to show me that His love for me was never about all the things I had done or not done for Him in the past. It is just because He wants to love me. And He wants to love you as well. He sent His son Jesus Christ because He wanted to love us unconditionally. Romans 5:8 declares that God sent Christ to die for us, the ungodly, revealing His great love for us. Wow. It may sound too good to be true but we would be fools to pass it up. May we receive this love in full.

May we learn how to receive this love from the Lord…this love that requires absolutely nothing from us but has everything for us to gain. I pray that you will recognize the Lord’s pursuit of you as a demonstration of His unconditional love towards you. I pray that you will receive it in full and let it put your soul at ease. I pray that if you also find it difficult to receive that you would ask the Lord to help you trust Him that what He has to offer is good and that He is more than competent to be the Lord of your life. I pray that we would all be overwhelmed with this passionate love of our God even when we can’t find a reason for Him to love us. For His love always remains and never ceases, no matter what we do or don’t do.

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;

His mercies never come to an end.”

–Lamentations 3:22–

Questions for Today:

• Do I find it difficult to receive?
• What does it mean for God to love us unconditionally?
• Why can I be confident that I can trust in God’s unconditional love for me?
• Why is there no fear in love?
• How can I receive God’s unconditional love for me today?

“Even So Come” by Passion Band ft ChrisTomlin