Being taken for granted is one of the most gut-wrenching feelings to experience, in my opinion. It is an ache that echoes thoughout the soul. I've had my fair share of experiencing feelings of unimportantance being projected onto me by the people who I thought loved me. There is nothing worse than having someone say they are in love with you, yet their actions show the opposite.

Honestly, you can't profess to be in a real relationship with someone, but not spend any time with them. You can't go about your day without making some sort of communication with them that allows them the comfort of knowing that you truly do care for them.

More than likely you or someone you know has experienced being in a relationship that is deemed as one-sided. You know, the kind that has one person pouring out their love and affection on someone, only to find the feelings aren't really mutual. That kind of relationship is unbalanced because one person is giving while the other person only seems to take. It usually ends badly with one party walking away feeling unloved, unimportant and invaluable.

For those of you that know the sting of such a tragic love story, what I'm about to write should register with you. Some will read this and make excuses as to why it doesn't pertain to them, while others will dismiss this as invalidity all together. Yet, some will read it and allow its startling truth to permeate deep within their soul.

We love to speak of God's great love for us, and it certainly is a life changing message that everyone needs to grasp, but it isn't the whole story. Here's the big kicker: God desires to be in an authentic relationship with you, and He desires to be loved by you.

Yes, God does love each and every one of us, but He also wants to be loved by us. He didn't create humans as robots. No, He gave us a plethora of emotions and taught us through Christ what love really is so that, in turn, we could not only love each other but also love Him.

Although, often times He is treated like a genie in a bottle, only hearing from us when we need something from Him. We are all for praying when the circumstances are dire, but we quickly forget of His existence once the prayers are answered. You see, God has been faithful to give many of us exactly what we have prayed for because of His great love for us, but a lot of times we put Him back inside this little box in our heart once He comes through for us. We want Him to play the side piece. You know, the one who doesn't get a real commitment, just gets a portion of our attention when we benefit from it.

In all reality, we sing songs with lyrics that really just sound like, "Gimme', gimme', gimme', Lord". We belt words like, "Pour out your favor on me. "Fill me up, Lord" and God must look at our hearts and think, "You want me to fill you up? I don't even know you!".

God gave His everything for us, so He won't comprehend this selfish love that we exude. He doesn't desire to be the side item in your relationship with Him anymore than you desire to play that role in your earthly relationships.

My prayer is that this article will provoke self evaluation just like it did for me when God brought it to my attention. I had to examine my heart, and what I found wasn't pretty. In fact, the same thing that I hated being done to me, was the very thing I was doing to God. If you aren't sure where you stand in your relationship with God, ask yourself this: Where is my time being spent? What am I pouring myself into? Well, my friend, there's your lover.