Craving Protection

We come into this world completely helpless and dependant on others to care for us and protect us. We need someone to teach us to walk, talk and love. It’s absolutely vital that someone protect us from others and from ourselves while we are little. As we grow, we need for our caretaker to exercise the wisdom of “letting go” little by little until we are what we like to think of as self-sufficient.

Little do we know, we never quite grow out of this need to be cared for, protected and taught.  We just graduate from one school to the next. Our parents are like elementary teachers meant to prepare us for higher education. God will become our teacher of things that our parents could not teach and He has far more self-control than our parents, who want to coddle us when we really need to suffer the scrapes and bruises of the fall.

I find myself pondering the idea of protection a lot lately as have struggled with it more as I have aged. As I think back, I realize that I have often thought that I am unloved or unworthy of protection because I was not protected when I felt I should have been. My fleshly nature wants to resent those who failed to protect me in life. But then God tells me that even though it’s natural for me to want it, those who failed to protect me too much somehow did me a favor regardless of how they (or satan) meant for it to impact me.

We have a natural tendency to crave protection because it makes us feel loved and cherished. We feel great when we are loved and cherished but the problem is that we don’t grow if we don’t suffer some. And when we don’t suffer, it keeps us from needing God. But no one likes to suffer…it’s not part of our plan. It prevents us from this “happiness” we think we deserve.

We have this idea that people don’t love us or that we aren’t important when we are in the midst of pain from something we think could have been prevented – by someone else.  Many of us have even resented God at some time or another for allowing something to happen that we deemed “unfair”.  There are a lot of things in life that are horrible and cruel that I, myself wish I could have prevented for others but the truth of it all is that He isn’t sitting up there trying to make life horrible for us. Sometimes things happen to us with no rhyme or reason.

The glory in it all is that He can make it all work towards our benefit rather than against us. And when we survive without these things we thought we needed, we realize that the net of God's grace held us all along.

There is flawed thinking in the idea that true love must not allow one to hurt. The “coddle” mindset we’ve adapted lends to the narcissistic thinking of our society – “It’s all about me, myself and my pain.” We, as believers have got to learn the difference in when and how much protection is too much. Too little protection causes unnecessary hurt but too much handicapps a person. It takes quite a bit of discernment to know that fine line of too little – too much.

Here are some truths I have learned that help me combat the “Why didn’t they protect me” thoughts.

·        Read His word daily. Seek to understand His message.

·        Pray often…at least daily but you can never pray too much.

·        Apply His truths to your life actively. This stuff He teaches us isn’t just words that sound nice. It’s quite logical and practical.

·        Let go of your old thought system and be open to the one He teaches you. Use it to combat the lies in your head.

·        Remember that other people are as helpless as you are. They cannot fix you. They cannot fix themselves. Freeing them from that burden is a beautiful act of grace.

·        Believe that no matter what happens, God can make you better from it. Better, not by society’s definition, but better in character and in faith.

·         Keep going no matter how much you hurt and no matter how badly you feel.  “But the one who endures to the end will be saved” Matthew 24:13

We are never really alone, like we think. God can hear our thoughts, feel our pains and I believe it hurts Him to see us hurt. He wants to see us grow way past the person we have in our minds that we ought to be but if we don’t learn how to rely on Him, be obedient to Him, and focus on Him we will never leave this spot.

Sustaining Love

For a long time in my life I thought it was unfair that others seemed to love me based on what I can do for them. But then I realized that I often do the same to others. I think it's a common mindset in our society that we should love people based on what we can get out of it. And yet, we wonder why relationships so often fail.

But in the process of "growing up" I am learning that true, wholesome, lasting, godly love cannot be sustained based on what we get from it, but what we can give. And it doesn't take long to learn that looking out for number one, seeking our own interests and even setting our expectations too high can lead to disappointment - for both sides.

We want all this stuff even while knowing our own humanity, and that we probably couldn't give it out as well as we think we could - yet we seek it from others still. And where does it get us? Alone? Lonely? Why? Many times it's all because we insist on our own way and because we refuse to accept the way another shows love. Sometimes it's because we are so selfish to think that having our own way is worth destroying everyone around us.

It's human nature to seek to please ourselves. But love originated with God, and it can't be sustained via man's way. Nothing changes, it seems, until we realize that our whole purpose in being is to serve others and not ourselves. Even then, it's hard to accept. Even then, it's hard for a faulty human to practice consistently.

I'm not suggesting we allow others to mistreat and abuse us. I am saying that we bring all this hurt on ourselves when we follow society's way of love. Many times. we put ourselves first in a relationship with the mindset that it's up to us to go after what we want and to expect others to meet all our needs. But is it really? Based on what I am learning from who God is, I don't think so.

I'm not suggesting that you are unimportant either. I am suggesting you make it a point to make someone else more important than yourself. When we stop thinking about how we feel or what we want all the time, we are happier because we are fulfilling our purposes. We can't be so dependent on people to meet our needs or we'll stay discourged non-stop because we are all so prone to mistakes. Trust me, I know.

We might begin a relationship seeking to meet our own needs but if we keep up that pace, we will either be destructive to that person and / or we will destroy the relationship. Selfishness builds a wall, and that wall is easier to prevent than to tear down.

I'm convinced that God's design for love is not possible until:

1. You have an intimacy with God first and foremost.
2. You accept that you were not meant to meet one's every need or to have one meet your every need. (This goes back to #1.)
3. You realize that we are here to serve and are able to say "This isn't about me."  
4. You are willing to sacrifice for others.
5. The hurt of another is more important than your own.

This stuff wasn't meant to be easy. But nothing worth doing ever is. Keep the pace and never quit.