As I become more aware of the incredible beauty of the love that is God's, I realise more how inhibited and reward-based ours is. Our love is given in a self-protective way. It is measured out in response to the way we are treated by others. It can be somewhat self-sacrificial, but the responses to those gifts are weighed up over time, and our gifts of love may wane if those responses are consistently less than positive.
We feel that we have limited love resources. These may be added to by positive input from those around us. They can also be used up by those who feed on them without return. And we feel the need to carefully manage what we have to give so that we don't run dry for those who deserve our love - or for the loving of ourselves, which puts us in a good place to give! So we protect that love we have. We love others judiciously - not wasting such a precious resource on those who do not value it. And life here has taught us that this is the wise way to live.
And then there's God. And he teaches something completely different!!! He loves in a way that is unearned and unlimited!!! Knowing each one completely as he does - warts and all! - he still waits with open arms and a flood of genuine, deep and unshaming love for any one of us who comes seeking it!!! His love is so deep that he chose to die to give us back life - while we were totally unaware of our need for it!! He chose to give at a level of deepest pain, even though we deserved nothing! Even though many of us would not even acknowledge it!! And he still gives that way!!! Because that's what love really is. And he is the source of real love. And that source is bottomless and generous and freely given!!!
And he teaches us this - that to live in a world where we are all held with this love, as it was meant to be, we need to be connected to this source of unlimited supply!!! So we are loved to the very depths of our soul!! And truly fed to the full!!! And that love can overflow from us - freely and purely and driven only by itself! - not by what may or may not be returned to us!! Because we ourselves are loved to the full!!! With a never ending source!!!
This is how we were created to be!! In such a world, no one would ever feel drained and unable to give. Because they would not be depending on limited sources around them! They would all be fed by the unending source that is God!!! With plenty to gift those around them!! It's a very different picture. A world with a completely different focus. Ideal. Absolutely beautiful. Deeply nourished by the source of love and life. And that love of his blows my mind.
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