Where love looks

It's becoming pretty clear from my Monvee evaluations that ideas, creativity, and life-in-motion are some of my core values. So how does an "idea-person, activator, or strategic thinker" (Strengthfinder 2.0) show love for others? My focus naturally falls to tasks and speech, to helping people move from where they are into exploration of their potential and use of their gifts. I'm thinking about where my love looks, where it rests its gaze, and what it envisions for the ones I love.

I love this from Real Simple's Daily Thought:

Certainly there are times and places for "gazing at each other" or taking a second and third look.

• When being introduced, we may look closely several times, evaluating if this person is someone who will become a friend or coworker.
• At the beginning of a romance, you want to see the other person and have them look back at you. 
• At special occasions, we may focus on the memories etched in a loved one's face.

The true love that God goes further. It examines the trajectory of a life, falls alongside to boost and support, and walks at the beloved's side. Through thick and thin. Through joys and sorrows. Through failure and success.

Guests swimming at a luxury hotel in Jakarta while
the rest of the city endures flooding (BBC)

Love doesn't isolate itself from reality. It doesn't ignore the needs around us (see photo right).

Let's find the direction of God's love and people's needs. I can probably come up with some ideas to make that kind of true love come alive today. How about you?

Read more:

*May he give us the desire to do his will in everything and to obey all the commands, decrees, and regulations that he gave our ancestors. 1 Kings 8:58 NLT

*Your way, O God, is holy. Psalm 77:13

*O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! Romans 11:33

Moravian Prayer: Holy Lord and God, you are the way the truth and the life. Fill us with your Holy Spirit; teach us your wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. Move self out of the way and direct our paths. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

At just the right time... the happy toppling of strongholds

Got an unrecognizable spiritual block? In a funk and stuck? Yeah, me too.

God responds to our prayers and requests, often surprising us with unexpected grace. Sunday was one of those mornings for me.

I almost skipped church. Our granddaughter, on a sleepover overnight, had a cold and probably should stay in. However, I had promised to volunteer before the first service so my husband stayed home with Kinsey. Off I went.

I'd puzzled over a blockage in my spiritual progress during the past few years: what was keeping me from wholeheartedly pursuing God? Was I wearing out from studies? At an impasse because that sometimes "just happens?" Or could there be some root cause I hadn't thought of? When I prayed, I remained frustrated at the lack of clarity about moving forward in my spiritual journey.

Don Ross, our lead pastor at Creekside, alternates topical and expository (exploring a book of the Bible) preaching. We're currently in the middle of four weeks about Dealing with your own Worst Enemy: how to leave behind the past to freely embrace faith and practice. Last week, he talked about confessing our sin and sins as a release from guilt. Very cool and interesting. I thought about the talk for a few days.

Cain and Abel: Durer woodcut

This week, Don poured scriptures over our heads again. Using Genesis 4, the story of the first death--premeditated murder, he examined the  anger that can result from being hurt by others. He talked about bitterness which provides a stronghold for undermining spiritual health. Don spotlighted the power of anger, the choice of forgiveness, and the resulting freedom from hostility, fatigue, and depression. Hmmm. The symptoms sounded like my internal churning at times.

Was I harboring unforgiveness? Had someone hurt me, whom I was "holding to account?" Immediately, I scribbled four names on my note sheet as God brought four events to mind. My writer's hand captured them: 1, 2, 3, 4. What?! That required no effort at all.

Don offered his listeners three practical responses: 1) forgive and move on; 2) consider forgiveness but hold expectations of others (hope they'd admit to hurting us); or 3) hang on to deep hurts.

OUT! GO! GOODBYE! "I'm ready to move on," my heart shouted as my body sat quietly on the back bench.

Happiness and relief flooded me as I drove home. "I almost missed it!" I said aloud in the confines of the car. "I almost stayed home today." Oh, thank God!!! for a word spoken in a season of openness and inquiry.

This morning, the music inside my body plays happy worship. God reminded me how he has continually refreshed my life by taking away such barriers to freedom and ministry:

• As young adults, one of the guys from youth group apologized for his hurtful words, spoken years earlier. I didn't remember at all. His words had fallen to the ground unarmed and he had suffered alone. After I gladly forgave, his joyful demeanor remained in my memory.
• One morning, driving home from an errand, God spoke "forgive, forgive" into my heart. Nothing more, just "forgive." I began considering what that strong urging meant. Later that day I found out one family member's treachery to another. My heart had been prepared. 
• More recently, two of us mutually admitted our lack of cooperation. Since then, we've become friends and I look forward to seeing him rather than avoiding our meetings.

Is a spiritual stronghold taping you to the spot though your feet long to run and dance? Here's what I learned about moving forward:

1. Open your heart to God. Pray. Acknowledge your inability to do life without God's help. Ask him to make the path clear.
2. Participate in a community of faith where God is speaking, ready to hear what God says. I got to church that day because I was "working" that morning.
3. Trust God to approach you when the time is right. He rarely forces his children to obey but provides ongoing opportunities to follow him.
4. Do what God asks. When your heart starts to pound (or your spirit resists) at confrontation with a biblical truth, you get to decide: yes or no? Obey or rebel? The choice is yours each time. If what's right seems too hard or your will stubbornly refuses, ask God's help. He'll strengthen you so you can thrive rather than exist.

Happily removing things that strangle us

Are you ready to release a stranglehold on your soul and walk in freedom? It may take a while to unwind the cords wrapped around you. The God of grace and lovingkindness invites us to become willing to travel with him, step by careful step. He protects us as we walk toward him in newness of life.

Read more:

*The LORD is God, shining upon us. Psalm 118:27

*(God says) "Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand." Jeremiah 18:6 (NASB)  

*It is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Philippians 2:13

Moravian Prayer: Work in us, dear Lord. Shape us into the vessel of your will as we do your works of grace. Bend us into your likeness, Lord Jesus and may the Holy Spirit complete in us all your gifts. Amen.

Love without fear

(Jesus said, ) But the third servant brought back only the original amount of money and said, "Master, I hid your money and kept it safe. I was afraid because you are a hard man to deal with, taking what isn't yours and harvesting crops you didn't plant."

"You wicked servant!" the king roared. "Your own words condemn you." Luke 19:20–22

What’s wrong with bringing back an original investment? It’s better than risking all and losing, isn’t it? Re-reading the verses above, I wonder if unearned gains are the reason the king reacts. Perhaps it’s not as much about keeping what we have, as hoarding out of fear. Perhaps it’s not doing our best because of our trepidation of failure … or success.

I’ve been thinking about what life would be like if we loved without fear or faltering. Most of us, in loving and living, have a certain amount of anxiety or hesitation about risking all in the act of giving ourselves to others.

But what if we threw ourselves into life with reckless love, regardless of the perils? What if we were willing to put everything on the line – our reputations, our dignity, our sense of entitlement to reciprocal love – to embrace others and our opportunities with all our personalities and character?

From some, that would look extravagant and extroverted, a splash of kindness in every direction. It’s scary for those who are used to being pushed away from their attempts to do things for others to keep an outgoing flow of love. Especially when we’re told over and over again, “No thanks! Keep away!” “I don’t want your attention!” or “I’ve got life under control, back off!” More devastating still, hearing: “Who do you think you are? You’re not good enough to contribute to me/ this project/ this ministry (etc.)”

Others would quietly serve, wholeheartedly seeing to the good of those around us. Sometimes a gentle spirit is crushed by not being noticed, by having attention drawn to good deeds, or hearing a scathing remark about the inadequacy of such actions. Having someone take the credit while belittling us for loving acts or sacrificial commitments can wither the heart, too.

It might also be shocking to receive such unfeigned grace and good deeds. After all, aren’t we sometimes suspicious of those who lavish good works around them? Don’t we fear that someone who does us a favor may want something from us? Something we might not be willing to return to them?

With all the talk of “love banks” where good actions or “deposits” accumulate to balance “withdrawals” of human need or unkind actions, it’s hard not to start measuring what we are owed and what we owe others. Sometimes, starting from a core distrust, such measurements begin to build a relationship. In truth, we’re so far in debt as far as God is concerned, that the accounting of rights and wrongs smacks of humanism, not godliness.

Scripture says we owe an un-repayable debt of love – that we have become debtors to Christ. In fact, we are His slaves, entirely purchased at Calvary through a bloody ransom. Therefore, if our Master asks us to love other, we don’t have permission or power to refuse – if we want to stay in right relationship with Him. (“By this everyone will know you are my disciples, that you have love one for another,” Jesus said bluntly.)

We probably try to like and love most people. However, I’m thinking beyond the human ability to do no harm and to be nice to those who are our friends and family.

LOVE WITHOUT FEAR. What would a day of that look like to those around me? To those around you? How would such courage feel?

Read more:

*Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.” The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him. Lamentations 3:22-25 NIV 

*I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation. Habakkuk 3:18

*Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them?” Mark 2:19 (NIV)

Moravian Prayer: Creator and Sustainer, you have provided such bounty for us, your children. When we feel a lack of earthly things, help us to trust in you to provide for our needs, on earth and in heaven. In Christ’s name. Amen.