Dear Heart,

I just saw a photograph of a hand holding a note that said, "Dear Heart, Fall in love when you're ready NOT when you're lonely." I think stepping into a love relationship with God is the same way. I don't want to be needed by my lover. I want her to want me. To want something takes a far greater sacrifice than to need something. If someone needs you, they may only be keeping you around to have their need met. If someone wants you, they are loyal to you not out of necessity but by choice. If my faith is not founded on a love for God, but rather on my need for Him alone, then it will not truly flourish. Abiding in His presence might begin to feel more like a prison than a paradise.

I don't want to fall in love with God because I know that I'm lonely, broken, and lost without Him...[which I am!] I want to pursue Him out of a real desire to know His voice. I want to grieve when I sin because I realize that I've hurt His heart. I want to speak into the lives of others because I know the heart of their Creator.

And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." - Luke 10:27