I’ve been in similar places myself and want to share what my journey has looked like as God has shown me how to overcome this. As many of you know, I have a personal relationship with the Lord, but I haven’t always had this type of relationship in my life. What I am going to share with you stems from discovering my true identity and living out of that place. I’m sure many of you have heard the saying, “Be careful what you ask for…” God is faithful to answer prayers, but you may find yourself going through a process that you don’t like or didn’t sign up for. Sometimes God will use challenging situations in our lives to teach and test us. When this happens, do you allow Him to be your source of strength or do you let your emotions get the best of you? If you want more of His love, prepare to be tested. If you want more of His patience, prepare to be tested. You get the idea…… He is faithful to answer our prayers, not in the way we expected but in the way He had planned, but are you willing to let your flesh die so He can be made alive and reflect Himself through you? All of us will come to that pivotal fork in the road where we have two choices: stay in control or surrender the reigns to God. That’s not to say that you only have to choose once and then the rest of life is a piece of cake. No, we wake up every morning with the choice of how we are going to live our life and who we are going to live it for. That doesn’t mean our circumstances or the people around us will automatically change, but as you lay down your life for Him I know that your perspective will change.
For the past few years I have been asking the Lord
to show me what HIS love really looks like – to take me deeper into His heart. I’ve always known that God is a loving God,
but I will openly admit that until recently I never fully understood what it meant
to be personally loved by God and to love Him with all my heart, soul, mind and
strength [Mark 12:30]. When I’d hear
people talk about having an intimate relationship with the Lord, often times it
made me feel uncomfortable because my understanding of intimacy was skewed. We are all created with the desire to do good and to love, but until
we fully receive the Father’s love we will always be incomplete. I think of the line in the movie Jerry
McGuire, “You complete me.” I have
encountered this kind of Father’s love in my life and it has completed me, but
it did require me to let go of insecurities and go outside my comfort zone so my
walls could come down.
God took my understanding of His love to a whole new
level, and it all began when I did the “Love Dare” on my husband, Josh, back in
2010 for his 34th birthday. I
thought this would be a creative way to show Josh just how much I loved him,
but little did I know that God had plans of His own. God humbled me in areas where my heart had
become hardened and I didn’t even realize it or was too prideful to admit. I thought I understood His love until I
encountered situations where the Holy Spirit brought conviction to my
heart. These verses have gone from my
head to my heart and I have been forever changed by them and continue to ask
the Lord to take me even deeper into His heart of love. I want to know how high, how deep, how wide HIS
love is.
In Matthew 5:44-48 Jesus says, “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless
those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who
spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of
your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good,
and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who
love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your
brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be
perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
Through
these verses the Lord showed me some “enemies” of mine that I was not
responding to with His love. Sure, they
may have caused pain in my life, but God showed me that they still deserved His
love. He also showed me times where I
wasn’t responding to my own husband and children with His love because I
allowed them to be my source of love instead of allowing Him to be my source of
love. When we allow other things/people to
be our source of love or happiness we will always be disappointed. I love my husband and my children bring
happiness into my life, but if those things were taken away does that mean my
love and happiness would be taken away also?
No, because they are not my source of love, joy and peace – He is! So, how did I reach this point…….?
How
many of you have people in your life that you just can’t stand to be around sometimes
and you wonder why they have to be a part of your life? Don’t everyone answer all at once…..! If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ve
probably experienced someone like this at least once. There has been someone in my life, not by my
own choosing, that I’ve had to deal with and I would sometimes find myself
thinking, “If only they didn’t exist” or “Why me God?” It got to a point in my life where I was
tired of allowing the way they treated me to trigger a negative reaction from
me. I asked the Lord to show me why this
was happening and how I could stop being so reactive when so-and-so pushed my
buttons. When this person would treat me
poorly, I would allow myself to get frazzled.
The Lord showed me that I had allowed the enemy to plant a seed of
bitterness in my heart towards them because I didn’t feel they were deserving
of love. The more we try to hide from
God, even though He already knows it all, the more vulnerable we become to
opening a door for the enemy to attack us and hold us in bondage. The greatest defense we can have against the
enemy is to maintain an honest heart before God. This person hurt my feelings and treated me
poorly even though I had done nothing wrong, but all I wanted was to “stick it
to this person”. The Lord reminded me of
the above verses in Matthew and how I am called to love my enemies and those
who treat me poorly. If I hate my
brother but say “I love God” I am a liar.
[1 John 4:18-21] If you say “I love you
God” but don’t trust Him, do you really love Him? I thought I was carrying God’s
love with me because I loved my family, friends, etc. and did good deeds, and
yet the Holy Spirit revealed to me in the most gentle way that I was not loving
the people He has called me to love – which is EVERYONE – including those that
don’t love me back or treat me very kindly.
He also showed me that I didn’t fully love and trust Him. Wow Lord, what do I do with that? His answer, “Allow me to be your first love.”
He doesn’t ask us to be a
doormat for people to abuse us, and we have to know how to set healthy
boundaries, but if you want to learn what His love looks like and to be a
carrier of it, you must allow Him to be your first love because He is love and
without His love we gain nothing [1 Corinthians 13:3]. When you love Him above all else, yes even
your spouse, parents, children, family [Matthew 10:37-39], His love will naturally
flow through you and out of you as you continue to remain in Him. John 15:5 – “I am the vine; you are the branches.
If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you
can do nothing." It is this kind of
love that will change the world. It is
this kind of love that will be a light for people in a very dark world. It is this kind of love that keeps you from
being offended and prompts you to quickly forgive others. Why this kind of love? Because it is coupled with the power of
Jesus! When you choose to
respond with His love, the power comes.
When you choose not to respond with His love, your peace and joy can be
stolen because you are distancing yourself from Him. Remember that He never leaves us, but
sometimes we choose to leave Him or distance ourselves from Him. It is always your choice! How deep do you want to go with Him?
The person I referenced in my example didn’t have to
enter my life in order for God to show me His love, but He used this situation
for good in my life because I love Him and asked Him to. Sometimes we go through things in life or
make choices that are not part of His plan.
Just like in the beginning with Adam and Eve, it wasn’t part of God’s
plan for them to sin and disobey Him by partaking of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. He gave them
freewill. They had a choice. The enemy deceived them by making their
choice appear to be good even though it went against what God told them. The enemy is really good at bringing about
doubt, fear, confusion and division.
Adam and Eve chose to reject God’s command by disobeying, but God knew this was going to happen and He had a
plan to redeem them and restore their relationship with Him. Romans 8:28 states that He works all things
together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His
purposes.
When I am connected to the vine (Jesus) my
circumstances and emotions don’t rule my life.
Yes, He gave us emotions: anger, sadness, etc., but He doesn’t want us
to stay there and live out of a place of emotions otherwise they start to
become the driving force in our lives. I
thank God for showing me how to allow His Word to become alive in my heart. I trust the Lord and love Him above all else. Although I may falter at times and definitely
don’t have all the answers, He is first in my life and I would have it no other
way. If you’ve never experienced the
love of the Father in a personal way, ask Him for it! If you want your roots to be planted in Him
because you are tired of the cycle you’ve been going through, receive Him now
and enjoy the ride!
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