it's good to be in love.

I hate to disappoint all you romance-lovers, but this is indeed not an update on my nonexistent love life. I recently read C.S. Lewis' The Four Loves, which, by the way, I do not recommend. Even though for the most part I wasn't a fan of this book, there was one quote that caught my attention. I can't remember it exactly and I couldn't find it on the interwebs, but it was something along the lines of "True love hopes for the day when it is no longer needed." By this Lewis meant that if we truly love someone, we hope that one day they will be perfectly fine without us.2 I began to wonder then, do I truly love anyone? Or more importantly, do I truly love God? If I'm being totally honest, then I think up until recently the sad but honest answer to both those questions was "no." 

For years, I've been told that I have a lot of potential and a lot to offer. This was all well and good for my self-esteem, but it's been a major stumbling block in my spiritual life. (Tangent: this is one of the reasons I sometimes fail to acknowledge a compliment from other people. It's not that I don't appreciate your encouragement; I just need to try very hard to not let it superinflate my ego.) I don't think I've ever been deluded enough to think that God needed me, but for far too long I've bought into the belief that I actually have something to offer God. I was only comfortable with God if I felt like I could tangibly reciprocate His love. But that was rather stupid, considering grace is foundational to Christianity and grace by definition cannot be earned. I remember reading a long time ago about delighting in God, rather than just in the gifts He gives, but it's finally beginning to sink in. I'm less infatuated by the warm fuzzy feeling that you sometimes get when you serve God, and I'm more in love with God himself. I've come to know that all I can offer is not an offering at all, but the returning of what already belongs to God.