a drop of water

Many of our actions are motivated by our need to be loved.  We work to be loved in forms like acceptance, admiration, respect, and devotion from various sources, mostly in our relationships with ourselves, strangers, co-workers, friends family and God.  We have a self-image that we work tirelessly to perfect, because we think it will earn the love of the people we are in relationship with.

These actions span all walks of life as we buy the latest fashions, make resolutions to frequent the gym, work long hours in our careers, make sacrifices and decisions that we normally wouldn’t, give gifts, and try to meet expectations all in the name of prerequisting love.  I believe that our identity is deeply influenced in how we receive love, namely the unconditional love that can not be earned and is given freely by our close friends, family and God.

One response to unconditional love is to completely reject it as a debt of responsibility and an infringement on our individuality.  When our parents have high expectations for us that chafe with our personal goals, or when our relationship with God is perceived as just a list of do’s and dont’s, we disappear in the opposite direction.

A second response to unconditional love is to leave it like an unopened Christmas gift under the tree.  We refuse to accept our parents helping hand in the face of failure (that they warned us about) or the forgiveness that God has extended to us through Jesus’ death on the cross because our pride and self-dependency has moved it just beyond reach.

A third and optimal response to unconditional love is realizing that what we have been trying to earn in all the wrong places is already available and unconditional.  Accepting it wholeheartedly provides a basis for us to redirect it outwards to those around us, and frees us (in success and failure) to explore our individual response  to that initial gift.

This is the kind of love that satisfies our need.  Granted we can not force people to accept our unconditional love for them, I believe we can do a lot of good in tailoring the expression of our unconditional love for them to ease its acceptance.  On that same note, I believe it can do a lot of good in realizing how we accept unconditional love from our close friends, our family and God.  Even though everyone has a different shape void, the unconditional love that fills it starts with what God has already freely give us.

Dallas Willard made the point that the stability of one’s identity lies in the acceptance or rejection of who their parents are and what their parents have done for (to) them. (Freudian basis probably?)  He noted that the rejection of one’s parents, their parenting, their influence, etc is to really reject oneself, or one’s own identity.  This assumes one’s identity can not really be separate from their parents which I think often times becomes a subtle misunderstanding from an American perspective that glorifies overcoming the obstacles and rising above one’s circumstances.

This is to say, that those who are have a healthy acceptance and understanding of who their parents are and what they have done for (to) them, both the good and the bad, will have a more stable and clear perspective to discover, define and grow their own identity.

I realized that even above this, the acceptance and understanding of who God is, what he has done for (to) us, allows me to have a single minded, stable and clear perspective to live in this world.  Rejection of God, what he has done, etc is really rejecting my God-given identity and calling where as a deeper understanding and embrace of who God is and what he has done for me allows me to understand and discover more of my own identity.