LOVING TO MUCH?

  Today's blog was inspired by a 'Share" from Facebook. (I have printed the full share at the end of my writing.)

  There are mornings when you get out of bed, and begin the day by digging a hole. When you do this, the day usually does not get better it just gets deeper and deeper. One must be careful because it can get dark in a hole. I hope I don’t end up in to deep here…. but here it goes…

Can We love others too much? On the surface, I don’t like this question at all because it can be so misunderstood in giving an answer.

  Love is so needed in our world and when we suggest that one might give too much love, it may become misconstrued, that we must not give love because in doing so we might harm ourselves or others in doing so. The truth is for many it simply is never going to happen. For most, they simply will never reach the point where love is overdone.

  Having said this, I must give a little warning……. There are some people who are overachievers giving up so much. When this happens, there is simply only left resentment and bitterness. This can happen when love is given and not appreciated for what it is. And When respect for people who give love are taken for granted and used and often abused. (special note…. careful here, make sure you are simply not just feeling sorry for yourself.)

  So here goes an attempt to not dig me a hole. We need a solid foundation in loving God in a proper way. It begins with Worship and proper attitudes of Worship.

  The Bible says, “We are to love God. God is our Creator. He is our Eternal Parent. We need to respect God for who God is. Yes, we can love God for what God does for us…. But if that is the only reason we love God, then we only look to God for some magic solution or sugar-daddy. We should do in life all we can do. We are created in God’s Image. So we too must be creators. But in this, we must not become simply users and abusers. We must create more than for just ourselves. As Christians, we see God laying down life in Jesus. We see God as Savior but more.

  We see God as Lord and we see God is not Lord out of demand, but as out of love. When we see God as we should. (Romans 12:1Therefore I urge you, brothers, because of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 2. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.…) So out of Awe-filled Love, we Worship God with all of our total respect.

Fulfilling the Second part:

And the second part of this is: We are to love others as we love ourselves”.

We cannot love others as we should unless we recognize it begins in our love for God and love for the person He wants us to be. We are created for a purpose of love.

  Servant-ness,

Self-worth: noun

1. the sense of one's own value or worth as a person; self-esteem; self-respect.

To serve people. To give service. To give our care. To provide service. To be a help. To meet needs of others.

To do the above one needs to recognize their gifts and abilities. To be able to have self-worth, self-esteem, confidence, sureness, one needs to see the value they are and can be. We find our purpose in this. We can find wholeness in this.

  The Why are we Doing :

“people pleasures often position themselves to make those closest to them rely on and become dependent on them. This often leaves the people closest to them such as family members and friends dis-empowered because they no longer are able to rely and depend on themselves. “

Question: Why am I doing this? Always question our own motives. We must not do things to get things. We must not be good so “God will love us more”. He can’t love us more than He already does. His love is sure and complete in its-self. We do what we do, out of our love. We can’t out love God. We must check our motives and make sure they are for a right reason.

Important to grasp the God loves us not because we do anything. He loves us just because he does. When we become sure of this, then we begin to have the kind of self-respect we should have. God created us to love. He doesn’t love junk.

  When we know this, we begin a journey of new worth.

 

 

Feel-good Need

Doing stuff out of “Feel-good need” is selfish. Some people do what they do because it feels good to do it. Nothing wrong with feeling good, Right? No, not in itself. But just to feel good, becomes a self-fulfilling moment of selfishness. And when giving begins to hurt, (and it will) well something begins to happen to our insides. If it is merely a surface love, and the pain comes, you stop doing the loving. Bitterness can set in. Resentment can build. In time, respect becomes destroyed in a relationship.

Selfish Love can become a user love. We can position ourselves so that people must totally depend on us. If we take away people’s ability of self-reliance, we take away their ability to survive without us. What happens to them when we simply cannot be there for them. If we love a person, we must never put them or ourselves in that place. Total dependence on others makes them little gods. Some person cannot take God’s place in our life. We can set ourselves up as false gods in people’s lives.

This is so destructive.

  It is important to find a good balance in taking care of one’s own needs and also giving to others. Self-care is totally important. We must never ask anyone to always be the giver. We must never always be the giver. Seeking Balance is the goal.

Ok? How deep in the hole am I?

Hope not too much. and you find this helpful.

below is the share from FB by Emmanuel Dagher

The intense need to please and care for others is often deeply rooted in a fear of rejection or being abandoned.

A people pleaser is often one of the kindest and most giving people you know. It's often very challenging for them to say no to someone who asks for their help.

Although this may seem like a great quality on the surface, people pleasures often position themselves to make those closest to them rely and become dependent on them.

This often leaves the people closest to them such as family members and friends dis-empowered because they no longer are able to rely and depend on themselves.

This can create big issues and breakdowns in relationships, because those who end up depending on the pleaser, start to resent and even abuse the very person they are relying on.

What ends up happening is that the very quality that they initially took advantage of (the pleasing quality) ends up becoming repulsive to them, and they end up taking out their anger, resentment and frustration on the person who just wants to please.

This abusive cycle can be stopped when the pleaser finally realizes that what they are doing by always people pleasing others is actually dis-empowering to everyone involved.

It's dis-empowering to themselves and it also dis-empowers the person they are pleasing. It's not enriching anyone involved.

When a people pleaser shifts their intense need to please others to a loving desire to only please themselves, they heal that part of them that feels like they will be rejected or abandoned.

From this space, they can then care for others from a healthy and balanced space, without having to sacrifice themselves ever again.