dailydatewithgod

If we look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs it starts with our basic human necessities of food, shelter, and safety.  Then it builds up to the highest level known as actualization.  Part of the reason we do not allow ourselves to engage in the invitation presented to us continually by God for deeper relationship is because we are still focused on our more immediate needs.  If we do not know where our next meal is coming from, why would we concern ourselves with making sure we spend time in nature connecting with all that is?  If we do not feel safe enough in the world, why would we venture into trusting a power greater than ourselves that cares for us?  The concept of love in any form holds no space to grow when we do not feel safe.  Much of the literature and study of the nature of love confirms this.  We have grand notions of what love is and all its forms. We also know what allows us to feel safe enough to let love grow.  We know how to make things look like love, but to be able to rest in it we must be able to trust it.  Otherwise we can not allow ourselves to be vulnerable enough to allow it in.  Perhaps it is why in our broken moments when we have nowhere else to turn, we are willing to allow love in.  We have no strength to keep up our defenses and we are open to seeing another way.  These gifts of broken experiences crack us open and cause us to feel like we are losing part of ourselves.  The only thing we are losing is our defenses or lack of safety.  God holds a space for the growth of our hearts in the harbor of his love.  It is there for us to connect to when we are ready.  Sometimes the only way to be ready is to feel completely unready. In the darkest and most troublesome times of my life, it is not the neat and predetermined understandings of love that have saved me.  It is the madness that maybe just maybe there is a deeper experience of love and safety reaching back out to me that is keeping the light of life alive in me when I can no longer see it.

My prayer for us the curiosity to explore the sense of the safety of love provided by God that is beyond our understanding today.