I am so thankful for a place to share this 31 day journey of faith. I have shared about saying goodbye to friends leaving for Kenya, for dark times of my seed dying in the fresh earth and for this journey of homeschooling God has me on.

It’s been a beautiful 16 days.

Today feels like a new chapter. A transition onto further growth. Today I want to share something with you I’ve processed and I hope it will deepen your relationship with Jesus and help shed some light on areas that you often don’t understand. For we all have those, yes?

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Love languages. You’ve heard of them, right?

There’s 5 of them:

Quality Time

Acts of Service

Gifts

Physical Touch

Words of Affirmation

Truly they can revolutionize how you say I love you to your spouse or friend. If you continually offer a gift to someone who loves quality time, your gesture of love will not be received as you intended! In fact, she may think you are trying to manipulate her!

Or, if you lavish compliments on dinner but don’t help out with the dishes for a woman who drinks in acts of service, you too may be in the dog house.

It’s fun to joke about how we all give and receive love and it’s wonderful when husband and wife can speak the same language. But one day I wondered if I project my love language that I use with others onto my relationship with Jesus. Do I expect Him to show me love in the same way I expect my husband to?

Let’s look at it –

I’m a quality time girl. So, yes, naturally I love spending time with the Lord. That’s partly why I run. To be with Him. That’s why I love prayer, because I feel close to Him. Anytime I can steal a quiet moment and read the Word, I feel fueled up. Yes, I express love to my Savior through spending quality time with Him, as I would my husband or friend.

Number two on my list is acts of service. I like to do things. This does come after we’ve had a good heart to heart cry first, though. And the same goes in my Spiritual walk. After time in the word, I’m ready to go! Ready to do something! That’s how I say I love you.

But what about the reverse? If the kids have been sick and I haven’t had the ability to spend time in the Word, do I feel like I’ve failed God? Like I haven’t said I Love You?

Yes, I can.

If I’m not in a season of life where I’m mobile to go and do big things for God, do I feel like I can’t say, I Love You?

What if God seems distant to me? If I’m reading and praying but He’s not saying anything? He’s not returning the quality time like I expected, am I disappointed?

If I don’t see Him doing things for me as I’ve prayed, do I feel that’s a disciplinary action?

Yes, I can.

What if your love language is gifts? You love giving. Your heart is full when you give to those around you, including your church.

But what about when finances are pinched and there’s not much to give. Do you feel like a failure? Like you can’t tell God you love Him like you want to?

Or what about if He’s not giving you the things you’ve prayed for? Does that make you mad or feel hurt?  

I’m not a gifts person, but it would be like God cancelling a date with me.

Physical touch would be tricky. How do you hug God? How does He hug you? Is the fact that you can’t in this life make it hard to love Him?

Then there’s words of affirmation. The Word of God would mean so much to you. Do you just drink it in? Hearing Him say I love you through the scripture? How do you return the words? In prayer? Do you write?

I wanted to throw this out there for 2 reasons:

One being, sometimes it’s difficult to have a personal relationship with a God we cannot see. Faith is hard. Anything we can do to discover why we feel a certain way or struggle with something can be a key that unlocks a door we’ve never gone through before. It can help you understand yourself better.

Two, is we’re all so different. One person may be gung-ho on doing good works while another just wants to be. There’s room for both! Maybe we’re all trying to express our love for our Savior the way we like to say I love you.

Thankfully, God’s “love tank” is never empty. He loves us all the time, and we aren’t what fills Him up. Jesus Christ fully satisfied that. So, whatever language you speak, we are free to love on our Savior in whatever way works!

Thanks for travelling with me today.

~Julie

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I hope your faith is growing along with mine as we explore this topic of faith every day for 31 days. If you’re just now joining me, you can catch up on all my posts HERE.

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