Living Fully Connected

When we learn to receive what we truly need from God, we become freer to choose.

We don't have to depend on other people to tell us we're worthy. We don't have to make decisions based on money, a job, approval, comparison, or fear of losing something. We can repent, surrender, and trust that God comes first. From that place, we begin to experience a different kind of freedom—the freedom to choose what is good, even when it is hard.

Following God's will produces the fruit of the Spirit. It requires us to actively become more like Jesus and to make decisions that align our lives with Him. And we don't have to figure it all out alone. We can pray for direction, wisdom, people who will guide us, opportunities to grow, and the tools we need to become who God created us to be. We can ask God to lead us, and then pay attention to what He is doing in and around us.

In the middle of everything, we can pray and give thanks. We can trust that even when there is a curve in the road, God can use it. He can discipline us, teach us, redirect us, and form something deeper in us through it.

When we're angry, we don't have to hide it from God. We can bring it to Him. We can lay our hearts completely open before Him and tell Him what we actually feel. We can invite His love into the places that hurt and invite Him to meet the needs underneath our emotions.

We don't have to live tomorrow today. Jesus calls us to be present.

So we can begin asking simple but powerful questions:

Who do I need to forgive?

Who do I need to talk to?

Who is bothering me?

What am I afraid to say?

Where am I withholding love?

What is happening inside of me right now?

God brings peace, but sometimes experiencing that peace requires us to become aware of what is keeping us from receiving it. Sometimes peace requires hard conversations. Sometimes it requires vulnerability. Sometimes it requires forgiveness, honesty, boundaries, or admitting that something hurts.

We have to be willing to fight for peace—not by controlling our circumstances, but by bringing our whole selves into God's presence.

And sometimes the most vulnerable places in us are the very places where God's love needs to enter.

There is something powerful about being loved in the places where you feel the most shame. When someone sees the part of you that you've tried to hide and chooses to love you there, it changes something. And when we allow ourselves to be known and loved by God in those places, His love can begin to overflow through us toward others.

Brothers and sisters, we need to become people who are willing to be known.

We need to share our hearts. We need to mourn with people in their pain. We need to celebrate their joy. We need to create spaces where people can experience the goodness of God through the way we love them.

We need more people who are deeply connected to God—people whose lives overflow with His love.

We need people who are willing to live on mission.

Because the more secure we become in God's love, the less control fear, comparison, jealousy, accusation, resentment, and the need for approval have over us. These emotions may still come, but they no longer have to define us or direct our decisions.

When we are rooted in God, we become free to listen to the desires He has placed within us and courageously pursue the things He is calling us toward.

Even when they seem impossible. Even when they feel far away. Even when we don't know how they could possibly happen.

What if we actually believed that God was able to do more through us than we can imagine?

What if we stopped allowing our happiness, our failures, our circumstances, or other people's opinions to determine our worth?

What if failure wasn't the end of the story?

What if your relationships became places of honesty, forgiveness, and love?

What if you could experience love from someone who once hurt you?

What if you could forgive someone without pretending that what happened didn't matter?

What if you could look back on one of the greatest losses of your life and eventually see how God met you there and brought something beautiful from it?

What if you started loving the parts of yourself you have spent years hating?

What if you weren't so afraid of how other people see you?

What if you could communicate your fears instead of hiding them?

What if you became curious enough to understand why people do the things they do?

This is where self-awareness and emotional health become so important.

Self-awareness helps us recognize what is happening inside of us so that we can bring those places to God. It helps us understand how we are feeling, recognize the lies we are believing, and notice the patterns that keep us stuck.

Instead of disassociating from pain or shoving it down, we can become curious about it.

Instead of repeating old cycles, we can bring them into the light.

Instead of constantly copying other people, we can become more secure in who God created us to be.

The deeper we are willing to go within ourselves, the deeper we can learn to go with God.

Because this is a relationship.

And relationships require trust, courage, discipline, perseverance, vulnerability, pain, suffering, healing, growth, joy, and an incredible amount of love.

The goal isn't simply to become a better version of ourselves.

The goal is to know God.

To focus on Jesus.

To understand the cross.

To receive the love He has already given us.

To surrender our lives to Him.

To serve Him.

To obey Him.

To become more like Him.

And ultimately, to live fully exposed and fully loved.

Because the more deeply we know that we are loved by God, the more freely we can love Him, love ourselves, and love the people around us.

Fully exposed. Fully loved. Fully alive with God.