One Word Choice - Love

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Visiting Gaye Idle at Captive Heart blog several days ago, I was intrigued by the one word challenge about which she wrote.  She referred to a book by Debbie Macomber, One Perfect Word,  as well as a facebook link where Debbie talks about the idea of the book.    Later, I googled “One Word” and found that this is apparently an idea claimed by several on the web.  I am not sure who came up with it first, but I thought I would try the challenge of choosing one word as a focal point for growth for the year.   

So I prayed about it over the course of the next few days.  Several words came to mind as possibilities.  ‘Delight’ was an obvious one, but it may have actually been a word given to me in years past without my realizing I even had a word.  I thought perhaps ‘fast’ was the word, until it became clear to me that the Lord was actually leading me to focus on ‘love’.  What makes me think so?  

Well I happened to be introduced to the idea of "One word" in early February, so love was in the air.  I might have been lulled into thinking it really is not the word for me; it just happens to be the word of the day.  However, in circumstances unrelated to Valentine mania, the word love continued to arise. and I became convinced this is the word the Lord wants me to focus on.  It is one of those words I think I know a whole lot about, but I’m sure I will find I know very little and have much more to learn.  I am so excited about opening my heart to what the Lord will teach me, will grow in me.

I have thus been paying careful attention each time I come across the word love, especially in my Bible reading.  Today, it presented itself in 1 Corinthians 14:1, “Pursue Love.”  What a great passage for mediation.  Here are my journal notes:

Pursue - Seek, go after, be persistent, continue at it until you have found it.

Love - God is love, to put others before myself, to put God first, action and emotion, compassion, kindness, generosity, to recognize all belongs to God, the essence of freedom.

I will be persistent in continuing to seek God and His character and nature, to understand Him and His will for my life, to seek to clothe myself in Christlikeness, compassion, kindness, generosity.  To dwell in God’s pleasure, were true freedom from all that is not love lies.  To hold all with an open hand rather than a clenched fist for none of it is really mine though all is mine as an inheritor of the kingdom a child of God.

Pursue Love.  

Oh precious Lord, let me pursue Love.  May I delight in Your love.  Amen.

Persevering in Our Calling

Deuteronomy 6: 5-7 “And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words, which I command you this day, shall be upon your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when thou sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up.”

I am a bit eccentric.  I like being left-handed, thought my most attractive feature growing up was my feet - alas, no longer the case, - and am glad that I am part of the 5% of the population who doesn’t have wisdom teeth, not because I don’t have wisdom teeth, although that is great, but because I am part of the 5%.  So it may not be a stretch to say I was initially drawn to home-schooling simply to be different.  It also shows I am a bit dull to just now be realizing this.  Eccentricity and denseness is not what got me to actually begin home-schooling or what kept me going, however.  It was clearly a gift from God.

Before we even had children, we attended a small church in Tennessee which had one home-schooling family.  I had never heard of home-schooling, but I was intrigued and wanted to know more.  This kind, godly family invited me into their home to spend the day watching how they home-schooled.  It was delightful chaos as this mom nurtured the growing minds and hearts of her children.  I was in awe.  Now attracted to this concept, I attended a home-schooling conference with my new friend, bought books on the topic, and examined different views on education, all before my first child was even conceived.

Touch-Talk-Walk

“Would you like to join me on my walk this morning?” I asked him as I put my shoes on.

I sure would.  Let me grab the dog and we’ll go.”  My husband, Colin,  jumped up from his seat and grabbed the leash and the pooper-scooper bag.

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It is my goal to walk at least one to two miles a day for health.  For our relationship, it is my husband’s goal to touch-talk-walk daily as often as we can.

It's About Relationships

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Life is about relationships.  How does evolution explain that?  The relationship between male and female to propagate the species, ok, that would be necessary, but relationships with emotions, encouragement, laughter,   connectedness with      friends, frustration, challenges, hurt, emoting of any kind, well, that makes no sense at all in the evolutionary model.  We were made for relationship by a loving God who created us first and foremost to have relationship with Him.  God knows about relationships since He was in relationship in the context of the Trinity before the creation of the world.  Relationship, then, is part of the innate character of who God is.  When thought of in this context, relationship makes perfect sense; it is an expression of the character of God.

The kind of relationship that reflects the character of God is relationship of commitment.  God is committed within the Trinity, and He is committed to us, His fallen creatures who He has created in His image, to reflect His character and dwell in His pleasure.  It is the fallen part that makes relating and commitment so hard.  We find it hard to love, hard to forgive, hard to just get along.  However, if we will work through the challenges, delight in the God who made us, submit to the Holy Spirit given to us to help us as we struggle through relating, we will find richness, growth, and joy by standing firm in our committed relationships.  “It is of Jehovah's lovingkindness that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.  They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness.  Jehovah is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in Him.”  (Lamentations 3:22-24)  God is loving and faithful to put up with us and see us through to the end.  Will we reflect that loving faithfulness in our approach to those whom God has given us in relationship, whether they deserve it or not?