The Surrender Series Part 3

Love

As I have learned to surrender to a higher source, in my case the higher source is God and Christ, I have come to understand that love has to be part of the equation. I have always felt that I have loved them, but as I thought about trust and my inability to surrender to them I realized that my love for them is lacking. Not that I don’t love them, but If I cannot surrender or trust, where is the love.

Normally when we love someone it is all about trusting them. Believing in them and knowing that they can be trusted with all parts of our lives. I asked myself and continue to do so daily about the authenticity of my love for them. Do I really love God and Christ? Perhaps not as much as I thought I did. If there was real love there why would so many things be such a challenge to me?

This increased awareness on my part has really been good. I think more about love and my relationship with them on a daily basis. Love is the moving force of the universe. Love is the foundation of all things. With out love there could be no surrendering and no trust.

I have discovered in my journey to surrender and trust, I must look to my heart and start with love. A large part of love is when it comes to others, including God and Christ is allowing them into our hearts. Accepting their love for me and accepting that the love of God and Christ is perfect. Meaning that even though I am unsure of so many things that love is a constant. No matter where I am or what I am doing that love is constant. If I take a moment I can see that love all around me.

As a parent I can understand that even more as I ponder my children and the choices they make. I get discouraged, but my love for them only increases as I see them struggle and make at times poor choices. I have come to understand that with God is is the same. He sees and sometimes grieves for us, but he never stops loving us perfectly. No matter what I cannot surrender and how I cannot trust, he is still constant. I am the one that is not.

This gives me great courage to surrender. It helps me to trust what I am surrendering. In the process I have found an interesting cycle. Surrendering and trusting builds love. As I recognize this my ability and love for God and Christ grows. Its a cycle. As I surrender, and trust in them, my ability to love them grows. It grows in such a way that I can surrender even more and trust them even more and thus the cycle continues growing until hopefully one day into a perfect love on my end. The love of God and Christ is perfect already, I am the one who has to develop and learn. To me a perfect love would be where I stop questioning everything and start surrendering and trusting without all the luggage I have accumulated over the years.

One of the amazing things I need to understand more is that as I work on surrendering and trusting that not only does my love for God and Christ increase, but the amazing things is that my ability to love others increases also. I am able to surrender the walls I have put up to keep others out and I am able to trust more and love deeper.

Love is the foundation of all things. I have realized that our hearts have the ability to love as God loves, meaning without boundaries or restrictions. We can love as deeply and as many as we choose. As we surrender even our hearts to God and Christ the result is an outpouring of love that allows us to love deeply and our ability to surrender and trust becomes easier. We actually start to love others more and even more important we can start to love ourselves in a completely different way. The way that God and Christ love, freely, openly, and without conditions.

Brad Petersen