Do you ever feel like we live in a world that lacks love? Or maybe you feel like we live in a nation that lacks love? Maybe you feel like you have a family that lacks love or perhaps you, personally, lack love?

I, for one, have felt like all the above were true statements at different times in my life. I have felt that I lacked love in so many ways throughout my life that I believe it is a miracle that I am still alive, knowing that love is an essential part of living. The travesty with feeling unloved is that it is 100% completely and wholly untrue.

You may not feel loved by others, including your family, and you may not feel love from our nation or our world but just because you FEEL unloved doesn’t make it true. You – Are – Loved. You are loved by the Creator of all things. You are loved unconditionally. Your past does not discount this love. Your present cannot prevent this love and your future cannot outrun this love. You are loved, period. You are loved always and forever to a depth that you cannot possibly imagine.

Are ya feeling loved yet? Why not? Well, you may not be feeling loved because it is a bit of a foreign state in our world these days. Our world says you must be worthy of love, you must be good enough for love, you have to drive the right car or have the right job or be perfect to be loved. So, because we don’t measure up to the world’s standards for “love worthiness” we often feel unloved. We feel that way because we are looking to the world and those that live in it for the love we desperately need. Unfortunately, the world is not capable of the unconditional love we need to complete us. The only place to receive full, unconditional love is from God. When we accept, and recognize God’s love it completes us. His love fills our spirits and compels us to love others from the overflowing love we have been given.

To find the love of God we must open our hearts to it and we must look for it. His Word gives us numerous examples of how He deeply He loves us. His Word also tells us of the many actions He has taken to prove His love for us. The passage below hits on both those topics.

1 John 4:7-10 (NIV)

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

God Is Love and knowing Him opens our hearts to His Love and changes our lives forever. I believe this is one of the, if not THE most important, traits of God to focus on in life. I think searching for love and the wholeness it brings causes much of the unhappiness of all humanity right now. We look to others to fulfill what only God can fulfill and their lack of capability to love us unconditionally and to make us feel whole with the love they can offer, leaves us feeling emptier than when we started.

Consider this quote below from Day 6 of the Navigators guide called 30 Days of Praying the Names and Attributes of God.

“God is love. God’s love is so great that He gave His only Son to bring us into fellowship with Him. God’s love not only encompasses the world but embraces each of us personally and intimately.”

If you can’t identify with how God loves YOU personally and intimately I encourage you to spend time with Him. Read His Word and pray for Him to come into your heart and fill the emptiness like only He can.

If that sounds overwhelming because you loathe yourself and that loathing blocks you from feeling love from ANY OTHER source, you are not alone. I have Been There-Done That and am a recovering “self-loather.” Trust me that God does love you and He can help you learn how to love yourself and see you like He sees you – through eyes of love. For a little insight on my journey see my blog – From Loathing to Loving.  An excerpt from that blog is below and it bears repeating here:

“Sometimes the hurdle with loving ourselves like God does is because we don’t understand the TRUTH about God. Let me leave you with some truth from 1 Corinthians 13. It is perhaps a familiar set of verses but I rewrote it exchanging Love for God (because He is Love). My prayer is that it brings it home to your heart.

God is patient, God is kind. God does not envy, God does not boast, God is not proud. God does not dishonor others, God is not self-seeking, God is not easily angered, God keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. God always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. God never fails.”

It is my deepest desire that you get to know God and that He fills your heart with love today, tomorrow and always.

~Pamela