In the context of meaningful relationships we can become 'driven' by the need for acceptance and love in our lives and compelled to live in unhealthy and unsustainable ways. When we struggle with insecurity in our souls, we often yield to unhealthy demands upon our time, resources and personality. When we are feeling our marriage or friendships being threatened, we are often tempted to 'crank up' our workload and just work harder to succeed. The challenge is we might be racing toward a cliff called burn out and breakdown.
People cannot function long term without their relational needs being met in healthy and sustainable ways. We can 'hide' for periods of time and withdraw from relationships in the short term....but not for too long. The natural reflex after a painful breakup or challenging time in our relationships is to abandon the quest for intimacy. We tend to move in extremes between enabling and abandoning and neither is an effective or healthy way to live in relationship.
When fear of rejection drives you, love will always elude you. We need to learn how to set healthy boundaries and expectations in our relationships. At the center of all our relational lives, we need to have the love of God at the foundation of our inner world. Let me call that relational center the "Grace Place" of unconditional love and acceptance. You were created for satisfying relationships and you are perfectly loved by the God who created and shaped who you are. Our human relationships are distorted and broken by our own tendency toward selfishness and sinfulness. When we embrace the amazing love of God we begin to be healed from the inside out. We are being called by God to receive his forgiveness and his transforming grace. When we know his love.... when we know who He is, we begin to discover who we really are. There is something powerfully life transforming when you understand the reality of being loved forever and forever by the God of the universe. You are not an accident.... your personality, your desires, your dreams, your appearance are all aspects that God loves right now. The spirit of our broken world demands you become something other than you are and then perhaps maybe..... just maybe you might be loved. The performance trap of a fickle world is unsustainable to the point that it becomes unattainable.
Today, God is calling us to a place of acceptance and love where we will never be left....never forsaken. God's love is faithful and not fickle. He loves you right now....and invites you to come to him and receive healing and hope for all your relationships. It's when we begin to know his love that we can begin to really love ourselves and others in healthy ways that won't destroy us. It's time to get set free from the performance trap. You were not born to live trapped on the treadmill of others sinful and selfish expectations. Healing in our lives often begins when matters of the heart are set free. I encourage you to find a place by yourself in prayer and let God reveal his love to you today. Hear his whisper to you, "I love you right now."
"For God so loved the world, he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."
Jim
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