You and God's Love Songs

A couple months ago I found myself complaining to my husband that he wasn’t showing me enough love. When he asked me what I needed him to do differently I was stuck and didn’t have an answer. A few days later I still felt the same way until one night I realized that nothing was really wrong. My husband was actually showing up for me better than he ever has since we’ve been married. So why was I complaining so much and didn’t feel the love he was giving?

That night as I laid in bed with tears streaming down my face, I found myself having a flashback to when I was a junior in college laying in the bed of my dorm room crying the same exact way.

The Holy Spirit began to remind me of that time and how I was in sin and darkness but didn’t even realize it until I experienced His love that day. I remembered how it was a Sunday and the last day of homecoming week, the day of the gospel concert. I was out partying and drinking the night before, so I slept in that Sunday. When I woke up I didn’t want to do anything except get some food and lay in the bed to recover from the night before. But, that afternoon I believe the Holy Spirit gave me a jolt of energy, just enough to get up and go to the gospel concert that evening. I didn’t want to go, but I made a vow my freshman year that I would always attend the homecoming gospel concert each year because if I can go to the parties, concerts, and other events that I paid money for, I could at least go to the free gospel concert.

I remember sitting in the audience waiting for the main artist to take the stage and wanting to leave, but something (or someone) kept me in my seat. After a while, Jonathon McReynolds, a christian singer, came out to sing his songs. I remember that was the moment that I experienced the love of God come in, making me realize the darkness that I was in.

After the concert I went back to my room, downloaded McReynolds whole album and laid in the bed listening to it as I cried.

Now in the present moment as I laid in the bed in my house while my husband was asleep, the Holy Spirit nudged me to download a few of the songs from that album again. Then I began to have more flashbacks.

Additional memories of my journey that started from that night of the gospel concert began to play in my head. There were specific turning points within my journey, and there were always songs connected to those seasons. About three months after that first encounter with God, I remember being in my dorm spending a lot of time praying, worshiping and learning to hear the voice of God. During that time I listened to Tye-Tribbett's album, Greater Than, almost daily. Throughout that time my relationship with God grew to become very intimate. I learned to know the difference between God’s voice and my own thoughts. That season I developed a discipline to hear the Holy Spirit speak to me almost daily, which is another precious time for myself.

After that second flashback the Holy Spirit began to tell me to download a few songs from that Tye-Tribbet album as well, so I did.

Then I had one more flashback. This time I was a senior in college and lived in an apartment off campus with my sister. During this season I spent a lot of time sitting on my bed in my room of that apartment talking to God, and He taught me about being the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. This was another pivotal time in our relationship because I was really struggling with living right and combating sin. I remember feeling like a hypocrite because I was growing in God, yet was still doing everything I was doing before that first encounter at the gospel concert. But during that time the Lord taught me that I was saved by grace through faith, not my good works. I’m not saying that God was okay with my sin, because He wasn’t, but He was teaching me how much He loved me despite my sin and that I was in right standing with Him due to what Jesus did, not that I will be in right standing with Him once I stopped sinning.

Once I got that revelation I knew that if I kept seeking Jesus that the sin would eventually fall off, and that I didn't have to force myself to “act right”. I just had to keep seeking God with a pure heart, confess my sins, and ask for forgiveness every time I messed up. Which was daily at the time. During that season the enemy would really try to mess with my head and tell me how God was mad at me, I wasn’t really saved, I’d never become the woman of God I desired to be, nor have a husband who would love me. And even when that didn’t work, he’d try to push me into religion telling me I needed to follow a list of rules. At this time God showed me how to use the Bible to combat the enemy and stand on His word to see the manifestation of His promises. In conjunction with God showing me the power of the Bible I listened to a lot of Kari Jobe, and her songs would make me feel like God Himself was singing to me. Her music expressed the intimate relationship that God desired to have with me.

After the third flashback, the Holy Spirit told me to download the Kari Jobe songs I used to listen to during that time, so I did.

So that night I followed the Lord’s instructions, downloaded the songs and made a playlist. Then I laid in bed with my airpods in and listened to the playlist I put together. As I laid there and thought about those three different seasons that truly began my relationship with God, I was reminded of His love for me. Those songs made me reminisce on the beginning of our relationship and how I felt back then, the same way couples are reminded of the beginning of their love and the butterflies they had when they first began dating when certain songs come on.

While I listened to God and my love songs I began to realize that my issue wasn’t that I needed to feel more love from my husband, but instead that I needed to feel the love of God again. With the busyness of life I became too focused on the things I was trying to do to please God, and forgot that I can’t do anything for God if I don't first rest in His love. I forgot that the ways that I serve God now began because it was flowing from the revelation of God’s love for me.

That night I just laid in bed being reminded of the beautiful relationship that God and I have and our journey to where we are now. I went to sleep consumed by His love and just allowed Him to refill me, love me, and hold me the way He did in the beginning of our relationship years ago. It felt like time stopped, the world quieted, and it was just Him and I in that moment. (I even forgot my husband was there for a second lol).

So I encourage you, if you find yourself trying to force love from other people and even things, it may be a sign that you aren’t in position to receive God’s love. God’s love is always there and available to us, it’s up to us to receive it. I challenge you to do what I did, reminisce on your relationship with God, ask the Holy Spirit to help you receive more of Jesus’ love, and create a playlist of you and God’s love songs.