If you haven’t, do yourself a favour, and watch it. I’ve seen this video a million times, but in the last month, I was prompt to watch it again. Interesting what the Holy Spirit revealed to me …
Our unconscious minds (in its desperation to help us recover from attachment wounds) adapt to certain connection strategies. Thus, we have a “comfortable” way we connect with others and we feel safe and in control. The interesting thing about praying and asking Abba Father to experience more of Him is that it always leads to circumstances that push us out of our comfort zones. Why is this? Our comfort zones are usually the very thing keeping us from fully experiencing Abba in the first place.
Thus, whatever your connection strategy is, if it opposes the love Abba Father has for you, you will experience situations to help you let go of that connection strategy. This is not a fun process, yet such a magnificent orchestrated process by the Holy Spirit Himself revealing the lies we believe surrounding Abba’s Love for us.
Yes, we need to be aware of what we need to let go of as well as be open to the Holy Spirit’s revelations and teaching in these difficult confronting situations.
What have we been taught about love? What do you unconsciously believe love is? Choosing Yeshua means we are driven by LOVE, yet our definition of love determines our approach to life, people, and even Abba Father. Our love definition needs to be exchanged for what Abba says love is for EACH ONE OF US individually.
Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance. Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense. Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong. Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8 – The Passion Translation)
This scripture is often referred to as perfect love and used as a measurement. When I look at it from a measurement point of view, I always feel judged, condemned, and ashamed. Why? It makes us sin-conscious focused on what we can do to prove our worthiness instead of focusing on GRACE, a gift given freely. I deeply, truly, and honestly believe that this scripture was never meant to be used as a measurement for us, but as an atonement for what Abba Father’s LOVE is for us. Love in its TRUE FORM – the way He intended it from the beginning. Pure, save, sound, supportive, present, and active.
We love because He first loved us is only making sense to me now. After all, if my attachment wound is not healed, my unconscious mind will NEVER allow me to experience the TRUE form of love. The unconscious mind, in its attempt to protect me from pain and sorrow, will block out Abba Father because the unresolved trauma of attachment wounds turn into self-fulfilling prophecies.
Thus, when I look at 1 Corinthians 13 using 1 John 4 as my perspective, I start to feel the deepness, sincerity, eagerness, pursuit, and fondness of Abba Father especially in the way Love was designed for me. You see, every one of us is uniquely wonderfully and fearfully created which points to only Abba fully knowing HOW to love us each uniquely in the way we need it.
One that sounds, feels, smells, tastes, cascades over you exactly the way you need it, want it and desire it to be. All that we need to do to experience it is ask and we shall receive, knock and the door shall be opened. If you experience painful intimacy trails and tribulations, know it’s because your connection strategy needs changing and Abba Father loves you enough to allow the lies to be exposed. The soul can only change when it EXPERIENCES change. Just as our cells believe the lies that crept in because of trauma, our cells need to experience the TRUTH to move from choosing to believe, to KNOWING it to be TRUE.
I would like to share this practical example with you. While I was revisiting The Attachment Theory video, I realised that I still had an anxious-avoidant connection strategy. Simply put, even though I wanted the time or connection with someone, I found it easier to avoid the connection as to protect myself from the rejection or abandonment that could follow. What an interesting theory of the unconscious mind, don’t you think? It wants to protect us by allowing us to choose the rejection or abandonment feeling unto ourselves in a different way – weird, right?
It is so amazing that during this time of realising I did this “pulling-back-avoiding-connection-thing”, I had family members visit me. When it was time for them to return home after a wonderful week, I could feel myself distancing from them slowly. I was aware of the pulling back in an attempt to “save” myself from the “loss” I will experience when they leave. It was then that the Holy Spirit’s revelation sounded in my heart that I should not retreat, but embrace them leaving and spend all the time that was left with them. Time, in the end, is all we have. Everything else will fade away and lose its value, but the memories, connections, and relationships we build will last forever.
Love never stops loving.
It extends beyond the gift of prophecy, which eventually fades away. It is more enduring than tongues, which will one day fall silent. Love remains long after words of knowledge are forgotten. Our present knowledge and our prophecies are but partial, but when love’s perfection arrives, the partial will fade away. When I was a child, I spoke about childish matters, for I saw things like a child and reasoned like a child. But the day came when I matured, and I set aside my childish ways. For now we see but a faint reflection of riddles and mysteries as though reflected in a mirror, but one day we will see face-to-face. My understanding is incomplete now, but one day I will understand everything, just as everything about me has been fully understood. Until then, there are three things that remain: faith, hope, and love – yet love surpasses them all. So above all else, let love be the beautiful prize for which you run. (1 Corinthians 13:8-13 – The Passion Translation)
Reading this scripture from verse 8 reminds me how Abba’s love for us is not influenced by ANYTHING we do. It exists as an entity standing by itself, strong and secure; never fading or decreasing.
What a Father we have!
