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God’s love is boring. It’s consistent, dependable, and full. He loved us first—deeply, completely, and abundantly—before we love him. But many of us have been conditioned to crave something else. We chase after love that is inconsistent, unreliable, and partial. When we receive the love we worked so hard for in any relational dynamic, whether it is family, friend, or romantic, while trying to prove that we are worthy of love, we feel a deep satisfaction—for a moment—until we are chasing after that sense of love all over again. The highs of chasing that kind of love feels amazing—but it always comes with lows just as far from the center. Each push for love heightens the sense of reward in our minds, only to deepen the crash when the love runs out. God’s love does not produce the immense highs—but it never crushes us into the deep lows, either. Instead, it carries us steadily and securely. This is where it gets uncomfortable. To truly internalize this love is to realize you have absolutely nothing to offer to make his love more or less. When chasing after the broken love from someone else, we “own” the reward of gaining their love, even if it is just for a moment before the cycle starts all over again. We feel “good enough” when we receive their attention by behaving a certain way. It gives us the illusion of control. But in reality we can become powerless when the love vanishes as the other person decides to stop loving. If we aren’t grounded, we will chase, and the chase becomes more about validation than true connection and intimacy. But with God’s love, you come into his presence as you are. You cannot make him love you any more or any less. This can be unsettling for us, though. We are so used to working for love and/or expecting abandonment once we are deeply connected, we don’t know how to just sit in the presence of a love that is ever present. We find out we don’t feel safe in our own bodies. The presence of true love feels… unnatural, and all of our love survival strategies rise up, begging us to start chasing for broken love again to feel safe. Until something in us changes, we will continue to take advantage of his fully given, ever present, ever consistent love by abandoning it and trading it in for a dysfunctional poor excuse of what we may consider to be love over and over again, only to soon find out we are chasing a longing inside of us no one or nothing else can truly fill. Thankfully, what we will discover is that the love given by God is always there even if we abandon it—and he never guilts or shames us for leaving. Accepting this love will challenge how you look at yourself and how you respond to connection. If love is ever present, you no longer need to feel the need to control the situation to protect yourself. You no longer need to be alert of every subtle clue that suggests, “Perhaps today is the day love is over.” You no longer have to feel like you need to warp yourself in order to fit the expected image someone has of you. You no longer depend on them to turn their affection back to you to finally feel okay. You just… accept his love. This can draw you to a safe place where your nervous system can feel calm, if you let it. But it is understandable if this “calm” can feel scary if you believe the only way you can feel safe is if you chase the shadow of unattainable love while remaining in a state of perpetual longing. You have to train your mind to recognize that the stillness and the longevity of consistent and ever present love is good and safe, not a threat to your emotional security. You are no longer in control. Chasing love is just a form of feeling like you’re in control, which, deep down, is fear. And perfect love casts out all fear. After sitting in this presence of love for a while, the next important stage is your response. It is easy to engage with God with acts of love with a wrong heart because we are trying to, consciously or unconsciously, manipulate him or control the future. We can engage with the Church, read scripture, avoid doing wrong, control our thoughts, serve, be generous and kind, all in hopes that God responds with blessings or provides us with what we want. This turns our pious actions into dust—not because the actions are wrong, but because the heart behind them is driven by fear or manipulation. We can love only as much as we are able to accept love. It may be foreign for us to respond to healthy love with healthy love. Not only does true love provide a resting place for us to dwell in peace, it also encourages us to transform and become the better version of ourselves. Not because we are trying to become worthy of love but because: we feel safe, we are moved and choose to respond in thankfulness for the love we receive, and we are filled with a confidence knowing that no matter what, we are seen, accepted, pursued, and valued. If we fall short in our love for God, it is okay, because his love is not determined by our ability to carry out a consistent performance. We aren’t expected to be grateful or even respond to his love like how we might conditionally expect others to be grateful and respond to us when we give out our love. But we know his love has deeply impacted us when we see our lives as an opportunity to show our gratefulness and to respond to him with our behavior out of genuine love for him. This is when you get to discover how you can express the greatest commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, and with all of your strength. You won’t understand how to carry out this commandment if you don’t internalize his love. Everything you do will just be an action, a duty. God is love, the very essence and presence of love and what it is. Once you start internalizing his love, then you will be able to have love pour out of you in all areas of your life. And each day you’ll be drawn in deeper and pour out more. Not because you are trying to earn love, but because you can’t help but act out of love, both to God and to others in all that you think, say, and do. P.S. When we internalize and engage with God’s love, we stop idolizing the chase of human love. We start discerning and attracting healthier relational dynamics. We look for people who can rest with us in the calm—not pull us back into the storm.