My Distorted View

This morning I was reading my Bible alongside my devotional and I read about what our top priority should be...and that is God and loving Him. But it went beyond that. The priority or commandment right after talks about how we need to love others, and how it relates closely to the first. Both are about love and seem to correspond with each other. Sometimes it's not that simple though; if we have a distorted view of God it can affect not only our relationship with Him, but also our relationships with other people. How do distorted views happen? Well for me it was because of the earthly authority figures in my life, more specifically my mom.

Growing up, I always wanted to show off and make my parents and teachers proud. I wanted to be their favorite, their best kid. When I would get good grades or do chores without asking, I easily won their approval; I thrived on that. At the same time, whenever I would mess up or fall short of standards, I was punished and knew that I had disappointed them. No matter who you are or who the authority figure(s), I'm sure you know what that's like. Good things result in praise, while bad things result in some type of punishment. That's usually all we know.

In response, when I hear about God and his endless forgiveness and grace, I want so badly to accept it and feel free from my past. It's forgiven, it's done. But because of my distorted view, it can be really difficult to fully wrap my arms around that.

Here's some good news. Because God wants us to fully experience His love and then love others with that same type of love, He is totally open to our honest hearts, no matter what the situation. We can be real with God and confess things to him like "hey i'm not feeling this whole love thing, but I really want to. Please help me in my relationship with you." So often we got caught up in the 'routine' of Christianity and we read our Bibles, we go through devotionals, we sing worship....but it's easy to forget about simply speaking with God and spending time in prayer. As I read my own devotional, I realized that I was merely trying to do all the right things rather than focusing on my relationship with Christ. That in itself is really all it comes down to.

I'm challenging myself to pursuing Christ and spending time working on our relationship. The other things will follow closely behind. I challenge you guys to do the same. Pray for me as I pray you, and remember the vast amount of love that God has for all of us. It's nothing like the earthly love we're so used to.