There's a woman I met in high school. She's about my age and her family is rather famous. You wouldn't know her, but if you heard her family's name, you'd know exactly who I was talking about. I remember the first time I met her; we had some mutual friends and we were all out to dinner. I felt annoyed by her assurance, ticked off by her assumption that her opinions were so relevant.
Looking back, it's clear that my insecure, young, unsure self was jealous. This girl may have grown up in an important family, but more to the point, she grew up with a concrete understanding that she was loved, that she mattered and that her opinions were relevant. And she lived and operated solely out of that love.
I don't mean to say that I didn't know I was loved-- I was, I am, and well. What I mean is, rather than living consistently out of that love, I have lived out of the need to impress, to be better than you, to have it altogether, to put on a front that is not authentic to what's going on inside.
If it's true that "in him we live and move and have our being" and yet I am still disposed towards these narcissistic shortcomings, how do I change? How do we begin to live out of the love of the Father? How do we begin to understand what that love really is?
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