GENUINE LOVE IS HUMILITY AT ITS CORE

Okay, I got busy again!  I will try hard to stay current this time.  Life gets in the way of my writing.  Does that happen to you? 

I keep a journal.  After I read verses in Scripture, I address my journal writings to God.  I think better on paper.  I know God can see what I am writing.  Besides, He knows a word before it is on my tongue.  But I read it back to the Lord after I've written it, because I believe he loves to hear our voices.  If you have children, you know what I mean.  He gave us voices for a reason or we would only have to think something to convey information.  He refers to our words and speaking all though Scripture.  He spoke the world into existence, so He must see power in the spoken word.

Today I was reading Matthew 11:28-30, and the topic for me today was "Humility."  Matthew 11:28-30 is as follows:

• "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, any you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."

The Lord absolutely astounds me.  His humility and love are so powerful.  Maybe those are the tools we should be fighting with.  Not with knowledge, money, prestige, position, revenge, or even physical weapons.  All of our souls are weary fighting our culture, rogue ideas, people's personalities, our own diminishing physical conditions, government laws imposed on us from people who aren't where we are spiritually, and so many other issues.

What people want deep down in their core is love.  To be loved is to be valued, even though we think we have so little to offer.  To be understood, even in places where we can't give voice to what we are thinking.  To be encouraged even though we commit messy mistakes.  And to know just how to give that kind of love to the many personalities in our lives.

What people want is genuine love.  It's hard to come by.  Our love is so conditional, even when we don't think it is.  My Aunt Phyllis once said to me that, when people say they love you, they mean only at that moment.  Their feelings can change on a dime.  Something is said, or something happens that can turn the energy of love to anger or even hate. 

This world is getting further removed from Jesus, and therefore, His love.  We should pray that He would help those of us who know Him to be His agents of love in this world.  We need to ask in each individual case to know what to think, do, or say to be His love to that person.  Jesus is humility personified.  That's is why he could love so easily.  He always put others first.

I get angry with people and their differences and I make that personal.  When what they need is love.  They need Jesus' love because mine is lacking.  They don't always know that they need His love, but they do.

I am asked the question, "In what way does your understanding of your identity relate to the issue of humility in your life?"  Maybe I never got enough love, praise, or acknowledgment as a child growing up.  I looked for it in all of the wrong places.  I promoted myself when no one else would, and did it in positive and negative ways.  That is until Jesus came into my life.  I haven't arrived.  I'm still learning.  But I can feel His love.  And He's proud of me.  I'm understanding how I can now love others, not because of who they are, but because of who they can become.

WHAT OUR FATHER WANTS

I have been absent from this site for awhile.  I have put this blog on hold while God had other things for me to do.  Now it's time to really dig in and get the conversation going again.  Will you join me?  This time we will keep it going.

I was reading in Luke 11:11-14 recently.  Remember the story?  Jesus was giving the parable about a son asking for bread, and Jesus said, "If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone?"  Then He speaks about an egg or a scorpion.  Jesus compares what we sinful, earthly people will give our children, with what the Father will give to His children if we but ask.

Having children has taught me a lot about that kind of love.  We love our children sacrificially and we want to give them every good thing.  The thing we want most from them is for them to want us, to think we have something valuable to say and to learn from us.  We want our children to respect us and to love us back with just a portion of the love that we have for them.  Don't you want that as a parent?  Isn't that birthed in a parent from the moment of conception?

The Father is so ready for us to love Him back that way.  He will come near to us, so near if we but ask Him to.  He will come closer than we could ask or think.  He would infuse Himself into us.  We would breathe in as He breathes out.  Our hearts would beat together so that it would be but a single sound.  His mind would fire off a thought and it would be received in ours.  And when we have no words and our hearts cry silent tears, He would instinctively know what we cannot not utter.  He would then begin to mend the tiny tears in our hearts. And with His gentle but powerful strength He would hold us together from the inside out.

From the time we have children, our identity is defined in their existence.  We are someone's father or mother.  We take on an important responsibility and we long to see some of who were are replicated in their lives.  Greater plans are executed to prepare them for a future they can't even comprehend.  We move mountains and lay down our lives for theirs.  Unfortunately some of them use what we've given them as a device to move away from us.  They may have removed themselves from our care, but they can never remove themselves from our love.

I know there is so much more I have yet to understand about God, but I am thankful that he made me a mom so that I could know in part, His love for me.  How could I choose not to have someone love me like that?