Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely

by Lysa TerKeurst

How dangerous it is when our souls are gasping for God but we’re too distracted flirting with the world to notice. Flirting will give you brief surges of fun feelings but will never really pull you in and hold you close.

We run at a breakneck pace to try and achieve what God simply wants us to slow down enough to receive.

The tragic truth is what will fill her—what will fill us—isn’t the accomplishment or the next relationship just ahead. That shiny thing is actually a vacuum that sucks us in and sucks us dry … but never has the ability to refill.

Jesus doesn’t participate in the rat race. He’s into the slower rhythms of life, like abiding, delighting, and dwelling—all words that require us to trust Him with our place and our pace.

“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” (JOHN 15:7 NASB)

Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (PSALM 37:4 ESV)

He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty [Whose power no foe can withstand]. (Psalm 91:1 AMPC)

“He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons” (emphasis added).

the first part of their calling was to be with Him.

Fullness comes to us when we remember to be with Him before goi...

“This isn’t a race to test the fastest pace. I just want you to persevere on the path I have marked out especially for you. Fix your eyes not on a worldly prize but on staying in love with Me.”

It’s not deciding in my mind, I deserve to be loved. Or manipulating my heart to feel loved. It’s settling in my soul, I was created by God, who formed me because He so much loved the very thought of me. When I was nothing, He saw something and declared it good. Very good. And very loved.

I am loved. This should be the genesis thought of every day. Not because of how terrific I am. God doesn’t base His thoughts toward me on my own fragile efforts.

Isn’t it strange how you can literally rub shoulders with lots of people but feel utterly alone? Proximity and activity don’t always equal connectivity.

It was as if I walked into each of these situations suddenly feeling like I wouldn’t be able to breathe unless someone else invited me in. The whole room was full of completely breathable air, but since I refused to take it in, I suffered.

People don’t mind doing CPR on a crisis victim, but no person is equipped to be the constant lifeline to another.

We must respect ourselves enough to break the pattern of placing unrealistic expectations on others. After all, people will not respect us more than we respect ourselves.

Here’s the secret shift we must make: Do I walk into situations prepared with the fullness of God in me, free to look for ways to bless others? Or … Do I walk into situations empty and dependent on others to look for ways to bless me?

the fullness of God is tucked into the sacred places within them. The full taking in of God is their soul oxygen. It’s not that they don’t need people. They do. God created them for community. But the way they love is from a full place, not from an empty desperation.

Being full of God’s love settles, empowers, and brings out the best of who we are. On the other hand, the more full of the flesh we are, the more we grab at anyone and anything to fill that ache for love and acceptance.

if you are desperately hungry, a dish of just about anything is hard to turn away. Our souls and our stomachs are alike in this way.

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14–19)

If we grasp the full love of Christ, we won’t grab at other things to fill us. Or if we do, we’ll sense it. We’ll feel a prick in our spirit when our flesh makes frenzied swipes at happiness, compromising clutches for attention, paranoid assumptions with no facts, joyless attempts to one-up another, and small-minded statements of pride.

I grasp the love of Christ. I sense when I’m making choices that don’t reflect God’s love. I’m disgusted by those choices. I am willing to tell my flesh no. I’m just not sure how to tell my flesh no.

When we have Christ, we are full—fully loved and accepted and empowered to say no.

This is true on the days we feel it and still true when we don’t feel Jesus’ love at all.

Yes, I am fully loved, fully accepted, and fully empowered to say no to my flesh. Speak that truth in the power He’s given you. Believe that truth in the power He’s given you. Live that truth in the power He’s given you.

But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified. Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. (THE MESSAGE)

The more fully we invite God in, the less we will feel uninvited by others.

Life and relationships aren’t nearly as tidy. They are more like loose threads.

Life doesn’t add up. People don’t add up. And in the rawest moments of honest hurting, God doesn’t add up. All of which makes us hold our trust ever so close to our chests until it becomes more tied to our fears than to our faith.

I looked at the space between the edge of the platform and the bar. I saw death. Bob saw life.

What we see will violate what we know unless what we know dictates what we see.

The word trust is like air; you know it’s there but it’s tough to draw a picture of it.

Girls who have the lingering whispers of rejection still echoing in the hollows of their soul rarely feel completely held safe.

They cringe when it doesn’t. It’s unfathomable to take a leap into something as uncertain as air and expect to stay intact.

What we see will violate what we know unless what we know dictates what we see.

don’t know when David wrote Psalm 23. But I do know at some point in his life David learned how to tremble well at the crossroads of trust.

The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

With the fullness of God, we are free to let humans be humans—fickle and fragile and forgetful.

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31)

For God has said, “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.” So we can say with confidence, “The LORD is my helper, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?” (Hebrews 13:5–6 NLT)

The LORD is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life—of whom s...

the peace of our souls is tethered to all that God is.

God will lead us, comfort us, guide us, walk with us, prepare the best for us, and continue filling us with such lavishness that we’re not just full but overflowing.

If we become enamored with something in this world we think offers better fullness than God, we will make room for it. We leak out His fullness to make room for something else we want to chase.

since we denied God’s power to lead us, we forget His power to hold us. In an effort not to free-fall, we chase something or someone else we think will ease our emptiness.

David takes a different approach. He reminds himself at the end of this psalm of trust and fulfillment:

There aren’t many sure things in this world. But God’s love and goodness are something we can absolutely count on to be there with us … to follow us.

That word follow in the original Hebrew is radaph, meaning “to pursue” or “chase.”