In our Everyday Love series, we're talking about our God-given needs. This episode is all about our real need for significance and attention. Love meets our need for significance with affirmation. Without trusting this love, we'll experience a loss of identity and be driven to perform for our acceptance. Love meets our need for attention with servant love. Without letting someone love us, our lives will be characterized by low self-esteem and an unhealthy self-story. Even though God is always loving us perfectly, our culture doesn't often tune our hearts to God's love. Our culture often tunes our hearts to a lot of other things that distract us away from God's servant love and how He meets our need for attention. In our human relationships, servant love is often the first kind of love that we trust. Listen in to hear why I (Janet) think Doug is the poster child for servant love! Because I trust his servant love, and because Doug's love is a gift—not a transaction, I trust his words of affirmation, too. Because I trust Doug's affirmation and attention, I'm learning to trust God's love for me in these ways as well. Listen now and linger in these TAKEAWAYS:

1. "I'm not a fixer or a judge, I'm a child of God. God is love, so I'm a lover, too."
2. What if today I consider what people need rather than what I have to say? And then I can watch for trust to roll out a red carpet to welcome the transformation that will come.
3. Since significance is a God-given need, if this need is not met with affirmation in healthy relationships, this need will be met with power in toxic relationships.

We mention these resources in this episode: Experiencing Affirmation in Your Family by Trueface.org The Cure and Parents by John Lynch, Bill Thrall, and Bruce McNicol Education by Design, Not Default - How Brave Love Creates Fearless Learning by Janet Newberry