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Relationship and Hearing the Voice of God

Yes, receive me. Receive my love for you. Close your eyes. Open your heart. You receive the truth of my word when you believe that I am speaking. I am speaking to your heart. I am ministering to your heart. I am pouring my love into your heart.

I am the one who loves you. I am the one who teaches you everything there is to know about love. I am the source of love—your only source. So, you must begin there—letting me show you the other places where you search for love outside of me.

Is it in people? In relationships? In validation from family members?

If the answer is yes, you need to lay this down. Give the relationships to me. Trust my voice, my truth. Hold up what you hear from others to what I tell you in my Word. I am who you can trust.

So, lay it all down, again and again. Do not be discouraged by your having to give me the relationships you love. Laying down what and who you love more than me is not a taking away of what you cherish. It is allowing me to give you what you were always meant to receive—love from the true source of love: love that is pure, love that is unchanging, love that does not yield.

My love, you see, is not fickle. My love is what holds together your heart, your soul, your life.

Surrendering the people you love more than you love me—their opinions, their values, their insecurities, their life choices—you free yourself from bondage. You free your heart from chains you were not meant to wear.

Come, son, daughter. Give them to me. Each person. Each relationship. Each one you love.

Do you think I take away indiscriminately? Do you think I take away as punishment? Do you think I take away what is good to not replace it with something true, something better?

I am good. I am better. Giving me your idols gives me permission to heal your broken heart—the places that have been hurt by your act of trusting the opinions and values of others more than the opinions and values of me. And what do I value?

Love.

And who do I love?

You. 

And to whom do I give good gifts because of my love?

You.

So, to hear me more clearly, to absorb my truth more easily, without obstacles, lay down all who you love more than you love me. And watch what I do with your surrender. Watch what I do with your trust in me. Watch what I do in your heart. 

For here, here, I make you able to receive my love.

Exercise:

When we think about our idols, it’s easier to focus on material things than it is to focus on people, I think. When we consider whether certain people in our lives, certain relationships, might have become idols for us, it can almost feel like we’re being disloyal to them or irresponsible.

We’re designed by God to love, after all. We’re called to love the people around us—our spouses, our children, our parents, our friends. How can that love ever be wrong?

Well, it can. And to see how, let’s look at how Jesus loved his closest friends. He poured himself into His disciples—traveling and eating meals and working with them, teaching them, sharing his heart and sacrificing for them. But He did all of that not to earn their esteem or approval or love, but because he loved His Father most. And pouring himself into the twelve is what his Father wanted him to do.

He kept things in the proper order. He modeled the proper order for us, and He explained it. In Matthew chapter 22, Jesus taught us, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

It’s when we get things out of order that our love goes wrong. Timothy Keller wrote, an idol is “anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.” He goes on: “An idol is whatever you look at and say, in your heart of hearts, ‘If I have that, then I’ll feel my life has meaning, then I’ll know I have value, then I’ll feel significant and secure.’”

And we all do it. A young person might seek validation in a particular romantic relationship or sexual conquest—or by being chosen by someone particularly beautiful or successful. A young parent might search for validation in the flourishing of his or her children. A more experienced parent might look for validation in the performance of his or her kids in a classroom or on an athletic field. A fully grown son or daughter might still try to earn validation from the approval of a father or mother. A husband or wife might try to find validation in the esteem of his or her spouse.

The issue is not flourishing or success or beauty. The issue is one of order—of where we go to find esteem and approval. The issue is one of validation.

No human can validate us. Period. Only God can do that. So, when we seek our validation as human beings from other human beings we set ourselves up for disappointment and misery.

No child, no spouse, no parent, nor any other human can deliver what we ask of them when we ask them to validate our lives. No human can bear the burden of standing in the place of God. But we ask them to do just that whenever we seek validation from them. And when they ultimately fail, and fail they will, we despair in the loss of our expectation, in the loss of our hope for the perfect children, the perfect relationship, the perfect marriage, the perfect family.

To whom are you looking for validation, apart from God?

Now do the only thing we can do, surrender this person, this relationship, to Jesus.

Imagine doing it right now. Imagine walking the person from whom you have been seeking validation over to Jesus; allow Jesus to take their hand, and let go with yours.

Trust him with this relationship.

And now ask Jesus to teach you how to move forward—how to continue letting go—how to seek your validation only in Him—only as His follower, only as a beloved son or daughter of your Father God.

Jesus, come. Come teach us how to live free. Teach us how to live free of our idols, free of our attachments. Purify and simplify our relationships. Make them Holy, Jesus. Help us to love the way we’re designed to love. Come, Jesus. Amen.