Caterpiller's need and Butterfly's Trust

This week has been a lot better. I felt better because I shared what was going on in my life and was more transparent with the people around me. Trust is soooooo hard!!!! Trusting God for who he says I am and trusting the new nature I have is difficult. One of the key points of The Cure is that we don’t see ourselves as we truly are. If we have accepted Christ’s redeeming work on the cross than we are as righteous as we are going to get. The example from the book is a caterpillar and a butterfly. The DNA of the caterpillar is the exact same as a butterfly even though the outsides look nothing alike. When we accepted Christ to save us from death, we were changed. In that instant we became righteous, period. We did nothing to change ourselves, God did. 2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT “…those who have become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun!” Like the caterpillar it grows and eventually matures into a butterfly. It does nothing to change itself. God is working in us and changing us from the inside out. It isn’t our work that is changing us. Philippians 2:13 NLT “For God is working in you, giving you the desire to obey him and the power to do what pleases him.”

Trusting others and earning others trust is a hard thing to do. Letting people love me by trusting them with the “true me” is something that I haven’t allowed. I build up walls and fortresses around my heart to protect it and to keep others from hurting me as badly as before but they also isolate me from having my needs met. It is a lack of trusting God to meet my needs that I put up walls and wear masks to appear that I’m ok. In The Cure they says this, “The spiritually immature are not loved well, but it is not because the fail. They are not loved well because they fail to trust the love of another. Because they trust no one, their needs aren’t met.” I have been trying to understand how to love others because I know that I can’t love others the way they should/need to be loved. I know that it is only through God’s love that I could ever hope to meet other’s needs and love them the way that Christ loves us. But how can I love others when I haven’t fully accepted God’s love of me? One thing that really resonated with me from Chapter 6 was this “Needs give us the capacity to feel loved. We know or experience love when our needs are met. Every day we need to be loved. Every day our God is committed to meeting our needs for attention (God’s servant love); acceptance (God’s unearned love); security (God’s committed love); trust (God’s faithful love); guidance (God’s directional love); protection (God’s jealous love); and significance (God’s affirming love).” So do you trust God to meet each of these needs in you? I know that I don’t yet.