Circling Back

by Lydia Floren

God loves me—personally, and intimately.

 I feel like God has taught me a lot over the years, but it all seems to circle back to the fact that He loves me.  Me, personally.  Not me as a part of the universal blob known as Humanity, though He does love every person He created.  He loves me–individually, personally, intimately.

I can feel like such a stranger to that love.   

I am so frustrated that after all this time of reading and writing on God’s love, I can feel like such a stranger to that love. I don’t know what the barrier is, but I want to break through it and let that love stream into my heart and soul.  It has before.  What is hindering it now?

I have drifted.

I think it is what it always is.  I have drifted. My focus has drifted away from God somehow. I get caught up in what I am doing, the project I am working on, the plans I have made.  Or I get distracted by obstacles, or fears, or hurts.  I don’t stay focused–in my mind and heart–on Him.

He knows this happens.

He knows this happens.  Maybe even expects it.  Yet He isn’t angry, or impatient, or annoyed.  He is just waiting.  He is waiting by the well of His living water—His love.  He is waiting for me to come back and drink deeply, and resume our conversation.   He is waiting for me to recognize my fear as the sign it is—a lack of focus on Him—and to return.  And focus.

Circling Back

When I do return—and I do, because once I have tasted the joy of being loved, I don’t want to be without it–He doesn’t want me to fill up my canteen and take off again.  He wants me to wait:  to wait with Him, and to wait for Him. To wait with Him as He heals a wound or rectifies a false belief or misunderstanding. To wait for Him to signal when it is time to move ahead once again.

Hopefully in my journey, as I learn to wait with Him, and to wait for Him, I will find myself circling back less and less,. Because I know God’s desire for me is to travel in tandem with Him every day, enjoying His loving presence as I go.

How do you circle back?  Please bless us with your insights!