Love

Love, now here a subject we girls can get into! From our earliest memories; love was at the core of our dreams and imaginings. Fantasy of the perfect knight, riding on his white horse, coming to sweep us off our feet and pledge his un-dying love or dreams of our wedding day full of flowers and candles and the most handsome man on the plant. Oh yea, love is right up our alley.

Then why do we struggle with loving God so much?

Jesus is truly our “knight in shining armor.” Look at all the things Christ is for us. He’s our rock, our fortress, our deliverer, our God, our strength, our buckler, our salvation, our high tower (Ps. 18:2) our hiding place (Ps. 32:7), our help and our shield (Ps. 33:20), our guide (Ps. 48:14) our glory and refuge (Ps. 62:7-8), our hope (Ps. 71:5), and our portion (Ps. 73:26). This list is by no mean inclusive, but it surely paints a picture of a God who is worthy to being loved.

So I ask again, why do so many Christians struggle with loving Christ?

As I complied this list from the Psalms I came across this verse in chapter 63:

“O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;”

Here the psalmist tells us three things. First, he seeks God early in the day. Yikes, I struggle with getting up early to do my devotion! Second, he thirsts for God’s present. Have you ever been really thirsty? Your body craves water until you get some. That craving doesn’t stop until you satisfy it with water. And lastly he longs for God like a person would for water in the desert. I looked up the word long. It means to pine for or feel a strong desire for or  to crave. Amazing. The psalmist truly loves God.

So why do Christians struggle with loving God?

I believe it’s because we forget that we need God’s help to love Him. He knows that for us, He’s not the tangible person who we can see and touch. He knows that due to that, we struggle to love Him. We know we need to love God so we try harder to do so in our own power only to fail over and over. “But the solution isn’t to try harder, fail, and then make bigger promises, only to fail again. It does no good to muster up more love for God, to will yourself to love Him more. When loving Him becomes obligation, one of many things we have to do, we end up focusing even more on ourselves.” I agree with Francis. I’ve lived in that vicious cycle.

The fact is we need God’s help to love Him. “If you merely pretend that you enjoy God or love Him, He knows. You can’t fool Him; don’t even try.” If you have a hard time loving God like the psalmist did, Francis gives you a guide. On pages 110-111, he instructs us on how to pray and ask God for help. I know it will be a help to some. It’s helped me. Everyone can love God more than they do today. We just need to seek God and ask for His help to love Him more.