God Speaks I Listen

This is the most serious blog I have ever written! If we don’t understand just how much God loves us…nothing in our lives will make any sense to us. We will always be very fearful during hard trials and lose hope and become discouraged often. We’ll experience a lot of doubt and lose our faith. We may frequently be mad at God and blame Him for any calamites or sudden disasters.

From an early age I never knew what love was. I had never felt it nor could I interpret it to even respond to it. Since it was never available to me it caused me a great deal of grief in my life and affected my personality. By the time I was about 12 I tried to commit suicide. I thought of suicide very often because of feeling lonely and hopeless. I did learn about God Jesus and the Holy Spirit and took great comfort in talking to God as a child but I didn’t receive God’s love in my heart because I didn’t know how.

When I turn 18 I gave myself away looking for someone to say they loved me…but even if they had said it I wouldn’t have believed them. That was because I never knew how to receive love and I thought I was an unlovable mistake. I didn’t know how special I was to God or anyone else.

In my first marriage I thought someone loved me but since the marriage was violent from the first week of marriage…I was like…yup…I’m unlovable!

Sometime later I married again and this time to a man who was very very loving and for two thirds of my 41 years of marriage I didn’t think my husband really loved me. I told him he was just co-dependent on me. I was damaged goods. No real emotions. I couldn’t even express love in a regular way.

I didn’t think my Father God could love someone like me. I felt like I kept failing Him and disappointing Him. God tried to show me and tell me that He loved me but I just could not accept it. My husband also tried to convince me of this to no avail. I didn’t even feel….human. Maybe I was really a robot…and artificial life form. I was like Data the android on Star Trek the TV show…no emotion.

I wish I could say that there was on big ah ha moment when I realized that God really loved me but it has been a process. As I began to seek help for my issues with love I found my answers in God’s word and through a great deal of talking with God. I also found answers through my health issues. I have a very rare illness that was only diagnosed recently. It has greatly affected not only my health but my emotions and even my ability to learn and process information.

I can say with 100% assurance that my husband really loves me from the depths of his heart!!! I know it for sure! I have learned my own love language and since I’m not the greatest at verbally expressing love…you know like I’m not all touchy feel-ly…I’ve learned how in my own way how to express my love and emotions to him and others.

I’m sharing this very personal information about myself for the purpose of getting you to see how much God loves you.

For many reasons some of which I just shared with you I could not accept God’s love for me and thought He was so disappointed with me that He was trying to squish me like a bug. I felt that He was always punishing me. BUT I finally have realized that GOD REALLY LOVES ME AND ALWAYS HAS AND ALWAYS WILL!!!!!! God showed me how I was conceived in His heart and mind and his love for me was always there. I was thought of and born out of His love for me. Once I left His mind and came through the universe and down into my mom’s womb and then things changed for me because of original sin.

So now I had to go through the process of life to get put back right with God and I had to get a relationship with God. He already loved me but I needed to get to a point of loving Him. As human nature is….I needed to fall in love with God. It was hard because of all of my baggage and because I associated my earthly trials with love. I would say…”how can God really love me and let me go through all this stuff?” I had to separate all my earthly mess and learn this concept…” Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him”!!!!!!!! (Job 13:15) I had to learn to sing this song and mean it….”It is well with my soul”!!!!!! I had to learn to love God despite all the things that might be going on in my life. I had to learn that God loves me no matter what I do or don’t do.

Everybody wants to be loved. It’s a fact! This is truth! We look for love first from our parents and then from other people. We instinctively need it. God make us like that! Ok we know this but what do we do about it? We look around for it. The greatest love was always there but we didn’t realize that we needed to search for God’s love. We thought we really needed people love. Well…we do but that love is good but not perfect and will let us down occasionally. We needed a more steady and complete love so we keep searching. I was searching and then I hit the jackpot…God’s amazing deep, piercing, overflowing, comforting, fear removing, strengthening love. This love is really mind-blowing!!

I sing a song written by Kirk Franklin called “Real Love”. This song makes me cry because it really says what’s in my heart about God.

“Real Love”

Look in my eyes and you will see The way real love used to be When the flowers bloomed in the spring time And happiness was all mine It’s hard to let my feelings show But I’ve got to let somebody know About the love that Jesus has given me He loosed my shackles and set me free Is this a dream or is it reality? Have I finally found someone who loves me? I just want to know

[CHORUS:] Have you ever loved somebody Will you ever love somebody The way that Jesus loves you

Over and over I ask myself Could there ever be anyone else   Who can give me so much joy and peace   And make every day oh so sweet I searched all over couldn’t find one Til I met His only begotten Son   At first I didn’t understand Until I heard about the nail prints in His hands   Is this a dream or is it reality?   Have I finally found someone who loves me? I just want to know I just want to know I just want to know

I get teary eyed a lot because every time I think about how much God loves me I get very emotional. You might ask how do I know God loves me and one answer I can give is one day when I was thinking about how hard my life was, God showed me like a movie playing in my mind all the times he bought me out of heavy trials, all the times I almost died, how He bought 5 of my kids from the brink of death, all the times He saved my family’s life and so on. I cried so hard to see this. One of my kids was born dead and I begged God in those moments to save her and He did. When my son was born and had a massive brain hemorrhage I was told he would never walk or talk. I begged God to heal Him and He did. God has done many miracles for me and I know He loves me.

The bible is jammed packed with God’s love for me. The more I study it the more I’m assured of this. The more I pray and interact with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit the more I know God loves me.

I think the big understanding about how much God loves us is to really understand this: God had a plan to create us, satan has a plan to destroy us and Jesus had a plan to redeem us! God had a plan to make us in His own image and to love us probably before satan was ever created. His plan was to have more children in addition to His only Son Jesus and He made us and adopted us into His family.

If you don’t realize how much Jesus loves you then you have no foundation for your life. You’ll keep searching and you may end up with some things that aren’t good for you.

What else could God possible do for you when He came down here Himself and laid down His life for you? Who would do that?

Because I have finally figured out how much loves me I’ve decide to commit the rest of my life to Him. I’ve offered my life and body as a living sacrifice to Him because it’s all that I have to give Him. When somebody loves you so much, it makes you want to do anything for them. God’s love consumes my thoughts day and night. Love makes you do that. My love for God is like this.   When you first met you husband to be you were so in love. Then during the first year of marriage called the honeymoon period love is so exciting and passionate. My love for God is that intense all day everyday now. It keeps getting more and more powerful. I suffer from an illness, I never have enough money and have constant trials going on. So how is it that in my difficult life that I’m getting deeper in love with God? It’s because we have developed a close intimate relationship. I walk with God constantly. I’ve learned to pray without ceasing. God has perfect love for me but I have had to developed and grow my love for Him.

I need every person reading this to think about how close is your relationship to God. Is it personal and intimate?

Hosea 2:19-20 I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord. And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy.

Isaiah 54:5For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called.

1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us.

If God has your whole heart He has all of your soul and He has all of you!!!! Loving God is a full time commitment.

When we die and transition into our next life…I pray we aren’t real saddened to find out that we never really loved God the way that we should have for who He is and for what He has done for us. It is so much more meaningful to praise Him and love Him now before we see His face. It’s important to have faith now to believe all that the bible has told us and the Holy Spirit has confirmed to us by His supernatural power. This is our special time to show God how grateful we are for our lives and His love by committing ourselves to Him. This also has a benefit for us too.

1 John 4:16-  So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. ¹⁷ By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. ¹⁹ We love because he first loved us.

In these verses above we can see that God’s love cast out fear. We can always know love no matter our situation. We will be able to say with confidence that it is well with our soul! We should not think that our trials are punishment from God! God doesn’t roll like that! There is a kind of old school word in the beginning of the verse and that is…”abide”. We don’t use that word a lot these days but it’s very important in our spiritual walk. That means to patiently wait in His presence without being moved and to stay in that place spiritually and emotionally. For me it means walking with the Lord. I interact with God on and off all day and night. I try to stay in constant communication Him.

We are human and the way humans operate is that we fall in love. This is how God made us. We fall in love with all kinds of things like babies, cars, collectables, songs and of course…people. Some love is topical, some brotherly love and some is agape love which is the highest form. So I think we need to fall in love with God and learn how to never fall out of love with Him.

We should love God in the highest form of love. This means we should love God deeper than any earthly relationship we have ever had!

So you might ask….how do we do that with an invisible God? These are my thoughts on the matter:

1. God has made this possible and has already set it up in our DNA, our brain and our soul to want to find Him and have a relation with Him. We need to believe/have faith in God!!!
2. The second way is to accept His Son Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.
3. Read, study and meditate on the Holy Bible.
4. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Matthew 6:6
5. Rely heavily on the Holy Spirit to reveal God to you and to help you to pray.
6. Learn to hear God’s voice.
7. Spend a lot of time talking to him.
8. Expect supernatural experiences with Him.
9. Think of God as everything to you in your life…sister, brother, mother, friend, comforter, husband, lover, counselor, doctor, your king, master, defender and your Father. He is so much more!
10. Walk with God!!

GOD IS SUPERNATURAL!!!! Look at Him that way and not like He’s human. He is unbelievably incredible! Out of this universe!! GET TO KNOW GOD IN HIS WORLD…IN THE SPIRIT!!!! Just because you are experiencing, sickness, financial difficulties, a bad marriage, job loss, difficult children, death, injury and so on, that has nothing to do with your love for God or His love for you. Love Him because of who He is period. In this way you will always experience a steady stream of love. We humans go up and down in our love with our earthly relationships. That’s why there are so many divorces and estranged relationships. WE DON’T NEED TO EXPERINCE ESTRANGMENT FROM GOD because we will feel depressed and hopeless!!! When we don’t feel God’s love….it’s not coming from Him, it’s coming from us…on our end! We need to find a way to get our booty back in His presence!!!! Yeah I said it like that because I feel very strongly about that point. We always blame God for the dry spells but it’s US!!

I’m writing this very long blog today because I’m VERY passionate about everyone getting all and the best of what God has to offer us. In the past I’ve blamed God for not answering my prayers and then I didn’t feel His love during those times. BUT I’VE LEARN TO LOVE HIM INTESNLY IN THE GOOD AND THE BAD TIMES. This is why I can honestly say it is well with my soul. It has been a long process of getting to this point. I tell you the truth, life trials hurt and sometimes really bad…but when I see myself in those trails I feel God’s love and it sustains me!!!! I feel He’s with me no matter what! And even if all goes south, help fades and I’m in the shadow of death and possibly facing my end, I have such joy knowing there is a place that has been prepared for me and that I will be free from all my pain and sorrows.  I will be with the love of my life forever! I even get a new glorified body!

But until that day I’m going to continue to encourage as many people as I can about the greatest love in my life who is God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Ya’ll be encouraged today…GOD LOVES YOU SOOOOO MUCH!!!!!!!! Now take that to the bank and cash that truth!!!!!

FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD!!!!!