THE WILL TO LOVE - Vital Christianity

53Marked differences developed between the two groups of babies within a short time.While the youngsters in the group that received love thrived and developed bright and sunnypersonalities, the babies from the other group began to show signs of serious emotionalmaladjustment and even their physical condition suffered as well.Your self-image is greatly affected by your early years. The love, or lack of love, that youreceived from your parents has influenced you significantly.Bill had always been criticized by his father when he did something wrong. On the otherhand, when he did something right he never received appreciation and encouragement. He wascontinually put down and told that he would never amount to anything. As a result Bill began tobelieve that he wasn’t worth much, that he was a failure, and in fact, became one. Why? Becausewe become what we believe ourselves to be! As the Bible states,“What a man thinks is really what he is” (Pr 23:7).These negative attitudes that we receive from our parents lead to further harm in thatwe tend to project our image of our earthly parents (especially our fathers) to that of ourheavenly Father. Because we feel rejected as persons by our own parents, we also feel rejectedby our heavenly Parent—God. Because our parents didn’t see any hope in us we tend to thinkthat God doesn’t either.How can we get out of this dilemma? By allowing God to be God!To do this we must find out what God is like. When we do this we see what His attitudetoward us really is. Gaining God’s perspective on ourselves is the key to improving our selfimage.The good news then, is that we do not have to be permanently handicapped by ourparents lack of love for us in those early years or since. Parents love is imperfect at best. The bestof our human loving falls far short of God’s.Since we learn to love by being loved, it is important that we experience the deepest kindof love that is possible. And that is God’s love. There is nothing theoretical about His love--Hehas demonstrated it.What God thinks of us and has done and wants to do on our behalf is the most importantthing for us.It was Mark Twain who once said, “God doesn’t know we are here, and He wouldn’t careif He did.” How foreign this perspective is to that of the Bible! For the Bible states, “AndGod saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (Ge 1:31).