There are those times in life when God teaches me something brand new about something that I thought was so simple. Recently, this has happened with the idea of being loved by God as opposed to pitied by others.
What does it actually mean, actually look like to live as a person who is fully confident that they are loved by God? Always. No matter what else is going on around us. Regardless of what ANYone tells us or says about us. Whether we feel loved or not in any given moment.
I think the words, "any given moment" are key to this thing. At least for how my journey with being loved by God is taking shape. Many days I can only live loved (with any type of confidence) on a moment by moment basis. And those moments are so full of power!
A few weeks ago God helped me discover, quite unexpectedly, the biggest lie that sets itself up every day to oppose the Truth that I'm loved by God. I was sitting with one of my favorite friends on my bench swing on the front balcony of my 4th floor apartment here in Phnom Penh. It was a really beautiful Friday morning; there was a breeze and birds could be heard singing instead of construction noise or wedding/funeral music and I was totally delighting in it! We began to talk about identity and the conversation progressed into the question, "Why don't you fully believe you're loved by God?" My answer came with such speed that it kind of shocked me.
"Well, usually what stops me from believing I'm loved is the thought that I'm only pitied by people, not loved." Whoa.... Wait.... Did I really just say that??? So fast??? Yikes. I didn't really know that was in there.... And so we talked about it a bit, me and my friend.
Pity is defined as, "A feeling of sorrow for the misfortune of others, a cause for regret or disappointment." I do not like pity. I do not like others to define my circumstances as misfortune. I've never liked pity and even more so since I have been following Jesus. Me and Jesus get to decide what my circumstances are and He never tells me that they are, "misfortune"
According to the standards of this world I have a disability. I'm legally blind and have been since I was 2 years old. And, reality is, it does limit me- I cannot play any contact sports (basically all this leaves me with as options are bowling and golf....super cool when you're a kid in school!), I can't speed read (I really wanted to take that class in high school, seriously, I thought it would be an awesome skill to have! But, I failed that and art 3 times) and I can't legally drive (although, I might have some friends who've let drive in parking lots...). Okay, so limitations, right? Well, I grew up quite determined to not live as if I were limited in any way and the pity I felt from other people only added fuel to that fire. I saw friends' parents pity me because I wan't included in lots of the "fun stuff" of recess games and bumper car birthday parties. I saw teachers pity me because I never could fully learn to write in cursive and couldn't copy my own notes from the blackboard and couldn't watch movies with the class when they would roll that tiny tv in on a cart. They felt disappointed because I didn't fit the expectations. But, if I hadn't picked up on their pity I would have been quite content. Instead, I became very aware that I couldn't do this or that.
This played out in other areas of my life as well. For example, I come from a very unstable home life- people pitied me because I didn't have clean clothes (they didn't help, they just talked about it above my 7 year old head as if I couldn't hear them), pitied because my parents were divorced and couldn't act civil in public and pitied when at 15 I finally became a foster child along with my younger brothers because our mom wasn't being responsible.
I was always making lots of efforts to live in a way that wouldn't give others reason to declare my life "disappointing" or to feel "regret" over the "misfortune" of my situations. Which leads us back to that morning on my bench swing a few weeks ago...
I told my friend these things. I told him all the lies the enemy of my soul has made me believe all these years. I told him how each time someone does something caring for me I still would wrestle with the question, "Do they love me or pity me?" He listened. He didn't argue with me or try to prove God's love to me. He didn't pity me by saying how disappointed he was for me or how sad this was... Instead he gave me options.
He encouraged me to action. He told me I could change the way I doubted love and called it pity. He empowered me by drawing me closer to Jesus.
"For I have drawn you with loving-kindness, I have loved you with an everlasting love," says the Lord." (Jeremiah 31:3) are the words my friend read to me right before he asked me if I wanted to pray. He had no idea that verse was the verse from 14 years ago that caused me to begin to believe that God could actually love me in a personal way. He wasn't asking me to pray just any prayer, this was very intentional. He asked me to pray how I feel when I live in the lie of being pitied and then to declare the Truth.
I found myself saying things like,
"God, when I believe I'm broken and pitied it makes me doubt Your goodness."
"When I believe I'm pitied instead of loved it makes me doubt Your plans for my life."
"It makes me doubt who You are."
"It makes me doubt the people You've placed in my life"
"It makes me doubt who You say I am"
"Doubting leads me to pity my own self..."
GROSS. YUCK. ICK. GET OUT OF HERE YOU LIES!!!!!!
And then, then the Truth came....
"God, I want Your help to believe I'm loved"
"I want to see You in people first. You are in the people You have put in my life."
"God, You set up circumstances in my life because You love me. When people are at the right place at the moments when I need help it's because You love me, not because they pity me"
"When I choose to live out of being loved I see You in every part of my life."
YES! WOOHOO!! TRUTH!!! TRUTH THAT SETS FREE AND CHANGES THINGS!!!!
Jesus changed me during that time of prayer. Not because I woke up the next morning and every thought I had was grounded in His love for me. That's not what happened. Sometimes, that is what God does but not this time. That pity lie has been comfortable for almost 30 years and it is taking some W-O-R-K to get rid of it. I ask God to help me recognize when I'm about to believe pity and then I make a real choice to let go of that assumption believe love instead. It's an every moment kind of journey for me. And, I'm being set free each time I choose to live loved.
