For most of my life I acknowledged I had a desperate need for love. This intense longing for love led me to believe that it was a desire that had to be met in every relationship. I was convinced that my relationships would fulfill my craving for love. To have this desire met was only natural, maybe even righteous. I was tempted at times when a relationship did not fulfill this need to limit investing my time, effort, intention and emotions. When I was not given love the way I desired, I built a wall that determined how much of myself I was willing to give.
I was continually affirmed in my belief, not only from my own broken logic, but in receiving worldly and christian counsel through a therapeutic gospel that emphasized my “felt needs” as God’s will for me. I remember learning from a Christian Counselor that I have a “love cup” that must be filled and when it is not filled, it will be easy to experience feelings of loneliness, depression, anxiety and anger. I left feeling empowered to love myself, and be relationally closest to those that gave me the feeling I craved. Sooner or later when man failed me, when I failed me, I felt crushed and empty. I soon experienced the weight of the stronghold this love cup really was. It was as if I were a slave to man, my feelings and utterly controlled by what I would or would not receive from others. I was allowing my happiness to rest on the inconsistent love from the world around me rather than the unfailing love of God alone.
But, there is a different Gospel, one that illuminates needs and wants for what they truly are. As I retrace the lines that I read on sacred pages, I can’t deny that a “love cup” is the farthest thing I read about in God’s will for us, His beloved. Through the lens of the Gospel, in light of Scripture, most apparent is a call of pouring out. Pouring out our love, significance, time, effort, and affection for others. What God’s word expresses is a call for his Children to love Him and love people by not only setting themselves aside but entering into self-forgetfulness.
Philippians 2:1-8 says this….
“….complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself..”
The Gospel explains that those who follow Jesus don’t look to people to fill their emotional need but rather love them for the glory of God (2 Cor. 5:14 ). We do not love others as if to gain a feeling of love that will fulfill our desires but rather we are filled by God’s love and so are free to love as Christ loved us (1 John 2:5-6).
In fact, as His love pours into our hearts we realize we are not love cups that need filling, but rather as Edward Welch says in When People are Big and God is Small, “Our goal is to love people more than need them. We are overflowing pitchers, not leaky cups”. God's love gives us a satisfaction that is divine. Our good Father, is the Creator of all that is pleasurable. As beloved children, we experience satisfaction in God by knowing His love, “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (Eph. 3:14-19).
“Exchange your codependency on others for a dependency on God. ”
Mindfulness Activity: Renew your mind that you may be transformed (Romans 12:12 )
Know ------> Do
Pray:
Write a prayer of confession and desire. Express what behavior you want to “put off” in light of God’s word and pray for what you want to “put on” in light of the truth you know (Ephesians 4:22-24). Read this prayer as often as you need to, as you seek to Glorify the Lord with your body & soul.
Meditate:
-2 Corinthians 5:14 - For Christ’s, love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, therefore all died. And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and was raised again.
-Ephesians 4:22-24- to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt though deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in the true righteousness and holiness.
-Romans 5:5 - and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
-1 John 2:5-6- But whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him out to walk in the same way in which he walked.
The following sources were used: ESV Bible, When People are Big And God is Small by Edward T. Welch
