“What church do you go to?“

“I don’t go to church, but I believe in God.“

“What do you mean you don’t go to church but you believe in God?” S/He asked alarmingly with a confused look.

“I mean I grew up in church, I just don’t like how people at church are judgmental, hypocrites and take my money… I don’t know, It’s just not for me anymore. But I still pray and talk to God.” They respond defensively.

Like many others, I have been asked these questions before by family members, friends and strangers. My responses were not exactly like above but they were similar. Though for the past 4 years I have been a frequent church attender and member, I still remember the feeling of guilt when I stopped attending church. The feeling that I was lost and no where close to being a saint to return. I felt somewhere in me I wanted to be loved but I didn’t understand the love of Jesus Christ. I did not understand why I had to attend church when I left feeling the exact same way I walked in. I mean if the majority of my life I attended church because grandma said too, then by a certain age, I had no real foundation for myself of who or what God was for me.

Many times we find ourselves honestly searching for some acceptance. We many not want to admit it but we want to be loved. We were created to love and be loved. Whether it is by a parent, significant other, child, friends, or in the world. There’s something satisfying about knowing that someone else cares about us, looks out for us, checks up on us and has our best interest in mind. From a psychology stand point, Love and belongingness is the third level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

“Maslow (1943) stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs and that some needs take precedence over others. Our most basic need is for physical survival, and this will be the first thing that motivates our behaviour. Once that level is fulfilled the next level up is what motivates us, and so on.” – Saul McLeod

1. Biological and Physiological Needs
2. Safety Needs
3. Love and Belongings Needs
4. Esteem Needs
5. Self Actualization

Love and belongingness includes, intimacy, trust and acceptance, receiving and giving affection and love, friendships, affiliation in a group such as work, family and friends. Notice how it’s in the middle, you can’t move forward without love and you can’t give it if your basic foundation isn’t taken care of.

To go deeper into Love and belongings, Gary Chapman author of the Five Love Languages (if you have not already please, please check out the book), says there are 5 ways people speak and understand emotional love.

1. Words of Affirmation – Using words that builds up someone
2. Acts of Services – Doing something nice for someone even if it has no direct benefit to you
3. Receiving Gifts – The heart of giving something special to someone
4. Quality Time – Giving someone your undivided attention
5. Physical Touch – Holding hands, kissing, embracing, hugs, or just being romantically physically close/intimate

There is not one that is higher than another and people can have more than one. Your love language is uniquely designed to the way you receive and give love. There is nothing wrong with that (keep this is mind)!

So what role does God play in this Love stuff? God is true love!!! He is the foundation on which our love should be planted on. Before anyone or anything, he first loved us. Psalms 139: 13-14 … For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” – NIV

He is the one who has given you the capabilities to produce a life for yourself. If he did not love you, you would have been taken out of this earth along time ago, matter fact what would be the point for your next breath (SN: God loves those that have passed away, I know someone will take my last line and run with it 🙂 )? One of the many great scriptures Christians use to explain God’s love for his people is John 3:16-17 …”For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” – NIV 

God is not looking for you to be perfect, he is NOT out here seeking for saints and perfectionist. I am not trying to be facetious by this statement but Jesus Christ himself comes from a lineage of liars, prostitutes, manipulator, cheaters, etc AND YET God saw fit for him to be the one to come into the world to save us. I mean seriously, God could have chosen any lineage to produce Jesus out of but he chose that one because God loved them and us beyond the mess. You don’t have to hide behind your past or the things you are currently doing. Even though Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs says you have to have your basic needs for survival and safety first before you can care about love, God does not require you to have yourself together. If anything he wants to be the one to help you take care of those basic needs and teach you how to truly love and then gain an understanding of who you are in the world. God displays his love differently based on who you are and how you understand love (hence earlier when I said there is nothing wrong with how you give and receive love according to the 5 love languages).

God is so awesome that he knows each of our love languages and truly meets us where we are. From people who have been broken and are afraid to love, to people who have been taught love incorrectly, those who have never experience genuine love and those who have only know love to hurt. When I sat on the floor in my room in 2012, crying and asking God to show me himself, to truly help me to understand his love, he had to reprogram my idea of what love means. In moments when things get hard, he finds me even when I try to hide or I don’t want to be found. When I want to stay dark, stay ashamed, regret past mistakes, he won’t let me. He shows me his love, whether through people, situations, moments or a gentle tug on my heart, he is just there for me. In my ugly, good, bad, and less than moments, he never turns his back on me in a way a human would.

God’s love is everlasting and it is not something spooky. Though we may try to understand love for ourselves but without the creator there would be no love. It is not about religion, how many times you attend church, what is your relationship status, how much money do you have in the bank … the way people love and the way God loves are completely different. People have conditional love (for the most part) and God has unconditional love.. . Numbers 23:19 says, “God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?”

God loves because it is in his nature to do so he cannot lie about what he said he will do.

So I challenge you as we are in the month of love, to experience the love of God for yourself. Whether that means you try going back to church at least one of these Sundays to hear the word of God, or pulling out your phone and typing what is on your heart in the Notes section to God, taking the time before bed to speak to God, telling him how you honestly feel, talking to someone who you know may be a believer, typing into google God’s Love For Us to get an understanding for yourself. For others maybe that means, sharing his love with others by doing a kind act of service a day, forgiving someone who hurt you, maybe even taking someone out who you know usually has a hard time during this time of the year. His love can be shown in many ways.

His love is everlasting and it will never die!

Cheers to LIVING ON PURPOSE!

Liz

Featured Image: https://testimoniesofhisgoodness.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/gods-love/