Love

I'm going to forewarn you that I am almost in tears as I'm typing today's post. I want to share with you all something that has been on my heart for a while and the more I think on the subject, the more I feel I need to express the thoughts in writing. Some of you may get offended by what I am about to say. My prayer is that if this applies to you, God will speak to you through the words and change can happen.

The topic on my mind lately is the topic of love. It was interesting on Sunday when a guest pastor at my church preached on the definition of radical love. In his main points he discussed 4 dimensions of love when someone is grounded in Christ. I want to use his points to guide me through today's message. The first dimension is loving people who are bound in sin. As someone who has been bound in sin, I can tell you it is not fun. Someone bound in sin is hurting and in most cases they do not even realize the cause of their inner pain is their sin. The sin usually results as a search to fill a void inside. Whether the sin is alcoholism, drug addiction, sex outside of marriage, or even greed (excessive shopping and the need to always have more or better). I find it interesting how we attack those bound in sin, as if we need to add to their hurt. We often fail to understand someone's sin is just a symptom of a greater problem. It's easier for us to condemn their sin rather than do the work of understanding the root of the issue. I want to take this to another level and ask....how do you treat another believer who is struggling with a sin issue? If a marriage is struggling, do we reach out in love or in judgment and condemnation? If this happens in our own family, how do we react?

The second dimension of radical love is loving people of different cultures. I grew up in a very small town in the south. I'm not exaggerating when I say the races in my little world were black, white, Mexican, or Chinese. Seriously, that about covered everyone on the planet. At the age of 14 I began dating someone who was black. This did not go over well in my family. As a result of this I was called every name you can imagine associated with this relationship. My family knew nothing of this young man, only his race. That was all they needed to know in order to judge him. Since then I have dated men of many races and cultures. I moved to Massachusetts when I was 19 and was exposed to one of the most diverse populations in the country. I met people of races and from countries I had never knew existed. Cape Verde? Where in the world is that? What I learned by living around so many people who were first or second generation Americans is that there is so much beauty in all people.  No matter what our skin color or culture, our inner humanity is all the same. My life has been greatly enriched through my friendships with people of other cultures. Even know as I look at my closest friends, I love the rainbow of diversity. If we only surround ourselves with others who look like us, we are limiting the scope of our own growth as people. I would take this even further by asking do you also have friends in different socio-economic levels. I've recently noticed most people are friends with people in their same social class. Do you have genuine friendships with those who are "richer" and also "poorer" than you? I would challenge each of you to make the conscious effort to expand your circle of friendships to someone outside of your "comfortable" circle. Could you be friends with a homeless person?  Would it make you uncomfortable to carry a conversation with someone completely opposite from you?

The third dimension of radical love is loving your enemies. We often hear the scriptures about loving our enemies. Oftentimes, we fail to recognize who the word enemy could be referring. An enemy is anyone in opposition to you. An enemy could be the person you serve with at church who has a different opinion than you. Do you treat that person with love and respect or immediately discount their opinions? What about your spouse? When they disagree with you do you continue to show them love. You may not like them at the moment, but you are still called to love them. What about when a family makes choices that are not what you would choose for them. I think I need to repeat that one. What about people who make choices for their lives that are not what YOU would choose? Are you able to push through YOUR feelings and show them love? Maybe this applies to your parents. Can you love and respect them even when their choices are not all about you? I'm speaking to grown children here. Examine your hearts on this and who may be an "enemy" to you and ask God to show you how you can be more loving.

The fourth dimension of radical love is loving the hurting. This one is SO huge! Why is it when we see people who are hurting, we tend to hurt them more? So often within the church body, we do the exact opposite of what we are called to do. I'm not saying we are to ever encourage or condone sin. When I was living a life far from Christ, the people who constantly told me how wrong I was were not the people who drew me closer to God. It was the people who loved me in spite of my sin that led me to wanting to know more about God and His plan for me. We must always remember as Christians that we are Jesus' representatives here on earth. Jesus loved those who were hurting. Jesus did not stone them. The woman caught in adultery was hurting. Her choices were because of hurt in her life. Jesus saw through her actions and into her heart. What do we see in those who are hurting? Do our words cause even more hurt or do we speak words of healing? Hurting people hurt people. Sometimes we are hurt by others because they are hurting themselves. This was a huge realization to me in how I felt towards my 5 year old daughter's father. Once I could honestly evaluate his life and all the hurt and pain he had experienced, it was easier for me to let go of all the hurt he had caused me. This does not excuse a person's actions, but it helps to explain behavior. When you see someone who is hurting, do you turn the other way and ignore the pain or do you step outside of yourself to show them love and give comfort?

There are many scriptures on love. Here are a few to meditate on today.

Proverbs 17:9  "Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling on it separates close friends."

Matthew 22:37–39  "Jesus said to him, 'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'

John 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends"  (are you willing to get out of your comfort zone and be inconvenienced to show love?)

1 Corinthians 13:1-3  "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."

Psalms 128

Today I am reading chapter 128 of Psalms and appropriately it is a verse about family. Here is the chapter in its entirety:

"All you who fear God, how blessed you are! how happily you walk on his smooth straight road! You worked hard and deserve all you've got coming. Enjoy the blessing! Revel in the goodness! Your wife will bear children as a vine bears grapes, your household lush as a vineyard, The children around your table as fresh and promising as young olive shoots. Stand in awe of God's Yes. Oh, how he blesses the one who fears God! Enjoy the good life in Jerusalem every day of your life.  And enjoy your grandchildren. Peace to Israel!" (MSG)

I read this verse and immediately think of the power of a husband and father. The verse references "your wife" so we know this scripture is directed to men who are married and have children. It can also be taken to heart by men who are single, but desire a wife and children in their future. Notice how all the blessings in this scripture are proceeded by ONE thing...a man who fears God. This translates into how a man leads his household. I had a conversation last night with a very close male friend of mine and he made a statement I found interesting. In referencing divorce, he stated no matter how it may appear from the outside, he believes 99% of all divorces are the mans fault. His explanation of this is that most men do not know how to lead their families or they take the responsibility lightly. If a divorce occurs because of a woman's behavior outside the home, it can usually be traced back to a man who is not leading in the home. This is very powerful stuff! Remember....it was a male who made this statement, so it's not me trying to "male-bash" or anything like that. 

Relate this back to the scripture we see here in Psalms, and I do not think he is missing the mark at all in his conclusion. If the head of the house is operating in a healthy fear and respect for God, he will lead his household in the same way. His home will be lush, meaning fruitful! It will be well taken care of and producing healthy fruit in the form of his offspring. The man is blessed who fears God and leads his family on the same path. If there is no fear or respect for God by the leader of the home, then children with little respect for authority are the result. I have seen it many times in my personal experience. Even having a father in the home can be worse than an absent father if his presence is not representative of the love of our Heavenly Father. Children will talk disrespectfully to their mother because they are not show how to respect her by their father. It is hard for a mother to command respect in the home if the father is always disrespecting her or not leading her in the way God commands.

With all this said, I would like to address any women reading this who are single. If you begin dating a man and can see he is not a leader, then you may want to reconsider the relationship. Having been single myself for a long time, I know how difficult this can be and the loneliness you may feel. However, how much better to be single and in peace than in a relationship or possibly marriage in which the man is unable to lead in the way God instructs?

Psalms 122

If you attend church, why do you go there? What is it that drives you to get out of a warm bed on Sunday mornings or give up your Saturday evenings to attend your house of worship? When you are there, is it just another part of you routine in life? Is it kind of like doing the laundry or washing dishes? There have been times in my life when I attended church out of a perceived obligation or feeling that going to church is simply something you should do every week. I am guessing many people have this same feeling judging by the jump in church attendance on Christmas and Easter. Somewhere inside most of us, there is a yearning to be within the house of God, even if only twice a year. I am asking these questions because chapter 122 of Psalms is all about the house of God.

"I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go into the house of the Lord. The Joy of Going to the House of the Lord Our feet have been standing Within your gates, O Jerusalem! Jerusalem is built As a city that is compact together, Where the tribes go up, The tribes of the Lord, To the Testimony of Israel, To give thanks to the name of the Lord.  For thrones are set there for judgment, The thrones of the house of David. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love you.  Peace be within your walls, Prosperity within your palaces.”  For the sake of my brethren and companions, I will now say, “Peace be within you.” Because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek your good."


Notice the Psalmists says he was GLAD when asked to go to the House of the Lord! Going to church should never be something routine or done begrudgingly. There is peace there! If there is not peace there, then something is being done wrong. I'm going to just call it out like it is. If the people within the church congregation are causing strife or are causing others to not want to be there, then these are all issues that need to be addressed! One of the main focuses of the church I attend is on building healthy relationships. If there is someone gossiping or causing division within the body, it is addressed. If there is offense, we are encouraged to go to the offender and talk about what happened so as not to allow the offense to grow and fester. Too many times within the body of Christ we allow the enemy to destroy a place designed to be a house of safety and refuge. If we attend church only to talk about what Sally so-and-so did with Billy-whats-his-face then we seriously need to check ourselves and our heart.

At the idea of being in the house of God, our eyes should pop open early on Sunday because we are so eager to spend time with other believers! Why do we arrive at work early, yet get to church just after the offering plate is passed? As for me, I can't wait to be at church on Sunday! Actually, most Sundays I am there for most of the day (on the ones I serve). I may seem weird, but I LIKE to be there that much! I love seeing people coming into Gods house during all three services. I love watching as families come in and as the weeks, months, and years pass being able to witness the growth and transformation in their lives. Sometimes this happens not even through direct conversation, but by watching their eyes and their expressions! You can tell when someone is broken and lonely and also tell when later, as God has worked on their heart and they have found PEACE within the body of Christ, you see a light there you have never seen before!

My prayer for each of you today is for a fresh EXCITEMENT to come into your lives! An excitement so that you want to be in God's house more. I pray going to church does not feel like an obligation, but an HONOR! If you have a church home, and someone invites you to attend a Sunday evening service, I pray you become so hungry that you jump at the opportunity to go to church again! I pray for a hunger inside of you to simply have MORE of God! There is something amazing that happens when the people of God come to church with an EXPECTATION of meeting Him there!

Redeeming Everything

Tonight was a night of worship for my church as the worship team is preparing to record their first live album next month. All of the songs are original writings and arrangements, but I have heard most of them several times now. Some more than others. One of the songs tonight has three words that stood out to me and has stuck with me for the last couple hours. I have heard this line and sung this line many times over the last few weeks, but tonight was different. I love when God speaks to me that way! He often uses a familiar song or a familiar passage of scripture to speak to me in a way I've never heard the words before. 

The line I heard tonight simply said "You redeemed everything."  To make this really basic in explanation, I looked up the definition of redeem. To put it simply, redeemed means "to buy or pay off; clear by payment." I will not insult your intelligence by defining "everything." In the context of saying Jesus redeemed everything, it means He paid off everything for me. Seriously stop and think about that for a minute. That sin you have been working to overcome? He already paid it. The striving to be a better person so you can be "worthy" enough? He already covered that too. 

Another way of defining redeem is "to recover by payment or other satisfaction." Jesus redeemed us by making the payment for us through His sacrifice. So that we do not have to endure hell for eternity, He was willing to go there for us instead. For three days He battled satan. And He won. That battle you are fighting? He's already won it. That healing you are praying for? He's already healed it. He did it all in order to recover a relationship with YOU!

More personally, when I think of all God has redeemed in my life, I tend to focus on the major highlights (or sometimes low lights). Yet, it is not only the big things He has redeemed. Yes, He has brought an amazing healing and restoration to my relationship with my dad. Yes, He has been my faithful provision for over a year now (longer really, but my trust has been there fully for this last year). Yes, He is constantly transforming me more and more into the woman He originally created me to be. But even more so, He has redeemed me in the little things. He has truly redeemed everything. Yes...every thing. All the things I do not even remember doing that should have required some SERIOUS payment. He redeemed it.

He already redeemed it for you too. Are you willing to let Him?

Crushing Flowers

One morning last week I walked Olivia to school. In order to get to her school we have to walk through an empty field. Although there is no sidewalk, there is a worn path from people walking this same route. We were walking slightly off the path and on the grass. Scattered in the grass were little yellow flowers, or weeds. Olivia looks down and quickly jumps from the grass back onto the path. As she is doing so, she explains we are crushing the flowers! I questioned her on the accuracy of calling them flowers and she proceeded to tell me how beautiful they were and if we stepped on them they would die. 

For the last week I have been thinking about this conversation. Perhaps this is an example of why Christ said we should all become like little children. How many things do we view in life as "weeds." Yet, there is innate beauty within them. Perhaps we don't even realize we treat flowers as though they were weeds. I witnessed an example of this just one day after my conversation with Olivia.

My neighbor is a single dad of two. His children are a girl, about 14, and a boy, about 10. They were exiting their home on the way to school at the same time I was walking Olivia to her bus stop. On this morning, things at their house were apparently not going well. From what I could overhear, the argument of the moment was which child was going to ride in the front seat of the car. Most parents of more than one child has been a part of this battle. However, the father was not entertained with their behavior. The father screamed at the children informing them he was not in the mood for "this crap." (I'm quoting, yet editing his exact wording). I then heard him yell to the daughter "You just shut up! You don't have an opinion in this! You don't have a voice!"

Upon hearing this, I immediately flashed back to my 15 year old self and the verbal abuse I experienced from my mom's boyfriend. This dad was making the same type of crushing statements I heard throughout my teenage years. My instinct was to immediately insert myself into the conversation. My only thought at the moment was "what kind of an example of a man are you being to your daughter?" When she gets older and a man is abusing her, will you be surprised? How will she ever demand to be respected as the beautiful flower she is if her daddy treats her like a weed?

Thankfully my adult self met the Daddy who created me. I'm learning to listen to His words instead of the recording I heard as a teenager. I'm learning I'm not a weed. I'm more like the flower that has just come through a storm. While my stem may be bent and I look beaten up a little, I become a beautiful flower with her head held high again when in the presence of the Son.

I Thought It Would Be Easier

For some unknown reason, I thought today would be easier. This morning I released my five year old daughter into the great unknown....also referred to as public school. I know it is something millions of parents have done before and there are thousands others doing it just this week. However, this is different. She is my baby. She is the little person I've had the honor of sharing every day with for the last year since I have been working from home. I'm going to miss hearing "hey mom, guess what....I love you" said at random moments throughout the day. 

Until two weeks ago I was planning to home school her for Kindergarten. The information came for her teacher assignment and I was assured by several friends who knew the teacher that she is a wonderful, grandmotherly type of teacher. I met her and liked what I saw so I decided to give this school another chance. You see, my experience with this school in the past has not been a good one. My older daughter attended the same school and experienced horrific bullying and an overall lack of any type of real education. Her fifth grade year was lost. When we moved her to a private school she had to repeat fifth grade in order to make up the lost year. Needless to say, my trust in this school is not very high. And now, to release my baby into their "care" is scary. 

I know Olivia is strong. She is so excited to be going to school. I asked how many new friends she will make and she quickly replied "100!" And she might be right. Olivia loves people. When our neighbor comes home from work, Olivia runs out the door to tell her hello. If she sees a family member of someone she knows, she always says "tell ______ I said hi."  Even if that someone is their pet.

My prayer is that her spirit would not become hardened by the world. Today feels like a loss of innocence for her. At the bus stop this morning a little boy used the "F" word and was talking about another inappropriate subject. I asked him to please be careful in what he is saying around younger children. Not to mention the boy himself was too young to be saying such things. I know I have raised her with values and compassion. I pray she is strong enough to be a good influence on the other children instead of the of the other way around.

The hardest part of today is realizing she is growing up. There is no way to stop the process of time. Because of having an older child, I know within the blink of an eye she will no longer be in Kindergarten, but middle school. It seems like only a few weeks ago I was dropping her big sister off on her first day.

As I was walking with Olivia to the bus stop this morning she noticed some dirt on the side of the road and commented it looked like a horse. I guess now during the day I will have to take more time to look at the shapes of the clouds or even dirt on the ground and become more child-like myself. 

As I was helping her get ready this morning she was carrying around her blankie. The last thing she did before leaving was brush her teeth. As she walked out of the bathroom, she left blankie laying on the floor. It somehow felt symbolic to me. She was ready to leave behind her security and excited for what lay ahead of her. We should all view life the same way.

Psalms 78

Today I am reading Psalm 78. This is quite a long chapter and I recommend you read the entire chapter for yourself (http://www.youversion.com/bible/nkjv/ps/78/1). ; What I would like to focus on today is the beginning of the chapter.

"I'm chewing on the morsel of a proverb; I'll let you in on the sweet old truths, Stories we heard from our fathers, counsel we learned at our mother's knee. We're not keeping this to ourselves, we're passing it along to the next generation-God's fame and fortune, the marvelous things he has done. He planted a witness in Jacob, set his Word firmly in Israel, Then commanded our parents to teach it to their children So the next generation would know, and all the generations to come-Know the truth and tell the stories can trust in God, Never forget the works of God but keep his commands to the letter. Heaven forbid they should be like their parents, bullheaded and bad, A fickle and faithless bunch who never stayed true to God." Psalm 78:2-8 MSG

I love how the Message translation shares this verse. The "sweet old truths" that were shared by their parents. If you have a relationship with Christ and you have children, it is your responsibility to share your faith and the truth of Christ with them. This is true whether your children are two or thirty-two. We are the first and most influential witnesses in our children's lives. I grew up going to church, yet my parents never shared their PERSONAL faith with me. We never read the bible together or talked about what we had heard in church. Perhaps because of this lack of sharing, I did make many of the same mistakes my parents had made in their pasts. What I learned was that church was a place you went on Sunday, but was basically irrelevant the rest of the week. Before my mom passed away, I know her walk with Christ became very personal to her. I've seen changes in my dad over the last several years so I know His walk is different now too. In fact almost every time we talk now, there is mention of God and Christ. At my step-mother's funeral a couple weeks ago, I saw my dad raising his hands in worship. This is something I never recall him doing when I was younger.

Do you talk to you children about God in a personal, first hand kind of way. If they are older, do they know of your trust in Him. If He has provided for you, have you shared this with your children? Do you pray with your children? Do you ask them to pray for others? As I'm typing this, my 5 year old just walked into the room with the money she received from the tooth fairy last night and showed me the part she was putting aside for her offering. The rest she wants to use to purchase a birthday present for someone she knows (all $.75). My heart sings at her generosity! Are the fruits of the spirit being displayed in your children? Are they displayed by you?

My prayer for you going into this weekend is that your family's walk with Christ would become stronger. Try praying with your children and reading scripture together. Ask them for their input on what has been read. You might be surprised at just how much they understand! You might want to avoid Song of Solomon unless they are at least 16. :)