“Make yourselves at home in my love.”
~John 15:9~
I don’t think I’ve ever read this verse in this version...what a powerful statement. But what does it look like to make yourself at home?
I have a small group of ladies that I meet with on a regular basis and just do life with. When they come to my home, they are all in my kitchen, they grab whatever they need, help themselves to whatever is in my fridge, wash the dishes that might be left in the sink…etc. They don’t have to ask, they know pretty much where everything is (especially Erika, who at one point re-organized my kitchen on my behalf, LOL)…and we pretty much do the same at their homes as well. We’ve been through some pretty rough stuff this year…worst nightmares coming to light, dealing with sin and dysfunctional relationships, a spouse with cancer, job changes, financial crises, death of loved ones, and through it all, we have rallied around each other, stepped up to help without judgments or disappointments attached, and just extended enormous amounts of grace and unconditional love. It’s all been something somewhat new to all of us on a very deep level over the last year and a half, and now that I’ve experienced it, I don’t know what I’d do without my girls. Mind you…we didn’t start out this way.
About 3 years ago, I started praying specifically that God would bring just a few ladies into my life that would be what I call my inner circle of core friendships…ladies that had my back no matter what and vice versa, that would challenge me and not allow me to become stagnant, and that I could just share my life with through the good, the bad, and the ugly. So after a little over a year of praying hard about this, God started to place some names on my heart. I didn’t know what it would look like and I didn’t want to be the “leader” although I was willing to get the ball rolling. Eventually I contacted all of them and we agreed upon a time to meet…no expectations or obligations…just kind of a let’s see what happens. We did meet and I realized that I was not alone in feeling awkward, scared to be judged, and terrified of sharing the real stuff that was going on. But then we met again…and again…and more and more walls and barriers began coming down…and here we are a year and a half later and not only are we still meeting, but we’ve added a couple of new ladies to our group and have been immensely blessed. It’s far more than I ever imagined, and I honestly didn’t even know that I needed all that I’ve been given until I experienced it.
Having said that, I think that this is similar in our relationships with God. Sometimes we compartmentalize our relationship with God and maybe without even realizing it, we give Him access to parts, but then withhold others out of fear of being rejected, being exposed, facing a lot of pain, etc. But making ourselves at home in His love, I think, requires a couple of things. One…we have to show up. It might be uncomfortable, and like the first night I met with the girls, none of us knew what to expect or how things would go down, but we started by overcoming that one moment of fear and we showed up bright-eyed and terrified, lol. We can’t begin to build deep relationships if we aren’t present. Secondly, we have to be willing to move from “knowing” that God loves us, to “believing” that He loves us. For me, that was a spot that I was stuck at for pretty much my entire adult life until the last year, and please understand that for most of us, that it is a process…at least for me, it took time, effort and some outside professional help to undo some things that I believed about myself and God that stood in the way of believing how much He truly loves me. But I can tell you, that when you get there, it changes EVERYTHING!! There’s nothing off limits, He knows it all anyways, and there is freedom in understanding at a heart level (not head knowledge) that we can’t frustrate God away…He doesn’t keep score and stand ready to accuse us over and over again. Instead, He loves us as His daughters and stands by with tender mercies, compassion, and tons of grace!!! (Psalm 103)
I believe that making ourselves at home in His love is just like any other relationship…sometimes it’s slow…we gain trust and give a little more…let a little more of our guard down…experience love at just a little bit deeper level, which causes us to want to take another step. We find that He is trustworthy and does have our best interests at heart, so we give a little more…that’s how deep relationships are built, right? Eventually we will get to the place where we aren’t protecting those certain “off limit” areas as much and although it’s still hard, we become more willing to invite Him into those places to work in our hearts because we believe that He truly does love us as His daughters and wants us to become more of who we already are and who He intended us to be.
