What I'm Learning about Unfailing Love...

I love summer time. As an educator, it is a time that I can truly sit back and rest, learn, listen and grow in my walk with God. The school year can be very hectic and crazy but summer always gives me a time to grow deeper in my walk with God. Many youth and kids have summer camps where they get to deepen their relationship with God but for me it is the extra time I get to spend with Him each and every morning of the summer. This summer God seems to be teaching me more than I ever thought possible. He is showing me some areas of my life that He has wanted full control over for quite some time and I am now able to give Him that control. One of those things was what I wrote about in my last post the difference between Believing In God and Believing God. Through a Beth Moore study on strongholds that I am doing with a very close group of friends on Wednesday mornings, God is showing me some areas of my life that I really didn't think I had "issues" with but WOW can His Word shine a light on the things He wants us to get. Thinking back on this one thing, I can see time and time again in my life where He has wanted me to get it and I think at times maybe I have but have not totally surrendered it. The area is a craving and a desire for unfailing love and that desire to be met by HIM and ONLY HIM, nothing else. As a woman this is especially hard at times, God created us for this desire but in our world it is SO easy to try to fill our cup with so many other things than God. These other things are, as I am learning, sometimes even "good" things. Beth Moore writes," God created us with a cavernous need that we would seek to fill until we found Him." How many times in my life have I tried to fill this cavernous need with other things than HIM ALONE? All to often I am afraid, for many years it was buying things. I loved to fill this void with stuff. Sometimes it may be a hamburger and fries that can fill this craving if I have had a long hard day. Recently I have filled this need by staying busy doing "good" things for God. Other times, I try to have my awesome, amazing, wonderfully loving husband fill this need. But God is showing me that NOTHING can fill this cavernous need for unfailing love but HIM. As awesome as some of our relationships on Earth can be with friends and loved ones, it truly goes back to HIM. Beth Moore goes on to say, " Searching for perfect, unfailing love in anyone ( and I would add anything) else is not only fruitless it is disappointing and destructive." We are not free to love in the true intent of the word until we have found love. I believe I have found this love in Jesus Christ but for quite some time now I haven't been spending enough time with Him in total surrender so my cup could be filled to the brim by HIM alone so I could then love others with all of my heart. I am praying that through this surrender of this stronghold that I will seek HIM first each morning and get my cup filled completely by Him so that I do not go around throughout the day trying to get my cup filled by approval of others ( can I get an amen), affirmation, control, success or immediate gratification ( shopping and food). WE were made to have this constant craving for love, but it can't be filled with anything else but GOD through His son Jesus Christ. I would encourage each of you to dig a little deeper, what things do you try to fill your cup with? We all do it. We all have things we try to fill our cup with, surrender those to God and get filled by Him. Then once we are filled by Him first, other love from others is just a bonus and we are much more pleasurable to be around when our cups are filled by Jesus first. My new life verse: Psalm 143:8 Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.