Beauty – one of the ways God communicates his love.

“As the Father has love me, so have I loved you.”
John 15:9

Jesus gives love because he has received and experienced the love of his Father.

I too am only able to give love if I have received and experienced love. Receiving is a BIG deal!

If you grew up in a Christian church, possibly one of the first scriptures you learned was
John 3:16, “For God so loved the world …” And maybe the first song you learned as a young child was Jesus Loves Me, This I know.

That was true for me. I knew the words. I could recite them from memory. Jesus Loves Me was the regular lullaby I sang to our young sons.

But knowing the words, for me, for many years, didn’t translate into receiving and experiencing the truth of the words.

Knowing is different from receiving and experiencing.

For the past several years I’ve been an adjunct faculty advisor for an on-line course. A few weeks ago the lectures revolved around our love needs (not the Five Love Languages); they are needs that God created in all of us that he wants to meet for us.

Needs … not weaknesses.

Seven needs were suggested. The need for security, acceptance, attention, to trust and be trusted, direction, protection, and significance. All are met in relationship with God and others.

I can nod my head in agreement and feel frustrated at the same time. The message the words are speaking are not my reality. Or I can nod my head and remember how God indeed did meet me in each of these places. The difference is not in the knowing, but in the experiencing and remembering.

I can know about God’s love.
But to experience the reality of God’s love, I need to remember.

There is an old spiritual discipline, Examen, that leads me in remembering.

When Bill (my husband) and I talk about our love languages and which we most greatly appreciate, Bill’s words are always, I like them all!

This too is true of our love needs. We not only like them, we need them.

“Love is the process of meeting needs.”
Bill Thrall

Last weekend was a good weekend. As I remembered how God met my love needs, I could fill in every blank.

The need for attention is fulfilled by servant love. God loves me through others. When we sat at the round table as the other filed out, I experienced my need for attention being fulfilled. Our conversation revolved around her and her need for prayer. But as she trusted me with her reality, I experienced God’s love;  she did too as I offered her my attention.

Later in the afternoon I experienced my need for protection through Bill as he guided me through some of my thoughts as I prepare to speak in a couple of weeks. It was good.

The next morning as I sipped my coffee on our deck, I purposefully and methodically traveled through each of the seven love needs and remembered how God met me.  Although I don’t think of this term very often, I was practicing Examen. It was good. I was a receiver of God’s love and I remembered. Receiving is a BIG deal!

“The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me;
Your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever.
Do not forsake the work of your hands.”
Psalm 138:8 (italics mine)