It has been one of those weeks where a recurring theme has literally leaped off the pages of my Bible and grabbed me around the neck. I was seeing things I never saw before, simply reading the same old passages. I was seeing the word "LOVE," used so many different ways.
God is love.
Now, do you know algebra? I'm neck deep in Algebra I right now with my 8th grade son! If God is love, then love is God.
God = Love
Love = God
The two names are interchangeable.
Try this:
God never fails.
Love never fails.
See? Still truth!
Over and over again, while reading the epistles this week, I saw how Paul was trying to convey that the "greatest of these is love." If you don't have love (God, God's love) in you, you don't know God (he that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love), you can't grow, nothing works, nothing changes, and you might as well give up! This applies to any situation in life! At home, marriage, kids, church, relationships, and all other efforts at growing and learning and trying to walk with the Lord.
Got love?
One mistake I used to make when trying to show love to others was that I tried to use my own love. Well, that is actually blasphemy. I have no love of my own. I am not love. God is love. If I try to be love, or have my own love, I will fail. I am walking in the flesh. I am trying to be something that I am not. I am trying to mimic God--something sure to fail.
I used to try to love my husband with my own love, my own feelings. It always failed me. It was never enough to "bear all things." I used to try to love others with my own love--I could love some, but definitely couldn't even come close to loving others. My love definitely failed me.
But then I learned that I have no love. I am not love. Only God is love. When reading I Corinthians 13 one day, amazed at the perfection of the love described in that passage, I realized that the passage wasn't telling ME to love people that way, it was telling me who God is, and what kind of love He has, and to let Him use me to pour His love through me on to people. His love. Not mine. Him. Not me.
When I understood this, my life changed dramatically--transformed by love. The love that I poured onto my husband and family became truly God's love flowing through me--not my love. God's love didn't fail me. When I was angry at my husband or at my children and didn't feel loving, I could simply pray to God, "Lord, please love them through me. Use my hands, my words, because I am not able to love." I found that when I could not even muster up any feelings of my own love within my fleshly, human self, I could offer my body as a living sacrifice to God, and despite my failing feelings, I could still be an instrument of His love. What healing! What peace! What blessing!
I was once talking to a frustrated mother. This mother is an excellent mother. I can't believe all that she is able to accomplish. It is apparent all the ways she seeks to please the Lord in how she submits to and supports her husband, trains her children, and manages her home. Yet, the children are still rebellious--especially the oldest. And one of her little ones (age 3) was pushing her to the limits of sanity with his antics for attention. She said, "I have tried everything. Nothing works! NOTHING works." She went on to say, "I feel like I am missing something big... but I just don't know what it its."
And into my mind leaped the phrase, "Love never fails."
I know she has tried everything--training, correcting, schedules, lists, Bible study with the children... she HAS tried everything.
She asked me, on the phone, "What am I missing?"
Then, she gave me an example. She described one of her current situations about how no matter what the punishment, the consistency, the training, or the threat, the little one refused to stay in bed throughout the night. She was getting no sleep and getting nowhere. The little one was waking up, getting out of bed, playing, waking the other children, and doing all other types of mischief." She asked, "How would you have handled it."
I sent a 9-1-1 prayer to God for guidance. I imagined myself in her shoes. I have had little ones of this same "ilk" spend the night at my house before. I imagined having to take him into my own home, and imagined him doing the same thing.
I told her, "I would have picked him up, cuddled him, kissed him, climbed into bed with him, and slept with him--all night if necessary--rubbing his back, kissing him, speaking words of love to him, talking to him sweetly about Jesus, looking at him lovingly, caressing him lovingly, and holding him tightly for as long as was needed. My boundaries and some chastening would have been spoken during this time, but I would have been speaking them while upholding him in love."
Don't you see, that is what Jesus does for us? He corrects us, leads us, chastens us, but always while walking with us and enveloping us in His perfect love, and His never-ending mercy.
You see, love is what was missing.
She said, "I have tried everything. Nothing works."
The Bible says, "Love never fails."
If nothing is working, then remember there is something that never fails.
Love.
a.k.a., God (Remember: God=Love, Love=God)
You must let God work through you, pour through you. It is Him, and His love that never fails.
At one of the hardest times in my marriage, I remember saying to God, "Fine! If you want to love him (my husband), go ahead! Love him all you want! I can't! You can use my hands and my mouth! But you're going to have to do it!"
That was a big "DUH" for God. Now, I ride on God's coattails, so to speak, when it comes to loving my husband. And now I truly love Him the way I always dreamed I wanted to, but was never able to do on my own.
I want you to consider, if your training and disciplining of your children doesn't seem to be working, is God's love missing from the equation? If your marriage is still struggling with anger, resentment, and failing feelings of love--is it God's love you're allowing to be used in the marriage, or are you trying to muster up your own cheap imitation?
You see, children want to please those who they know love them. If your children aren't too keen on pleasing you, maybe they don't know you love them--I mean love them the way God loves them.
Maybe you don't really know how much God loves you! If you really know God loves you, then you will want to please Him!
Sometimes, we get out of balance. We operate in about 95% training, and discipline, and about 5% loving actions. It should be the opposite.
My quick checklist. Do I (or you):
Hug your children and kiss them--before they come to get it from you? All the time?
Rub their backs and spend some loving time with them as they get into bed?
For no reason, go to your children and just hug them and tell them you love them, and that they please you?
Offer to read a story without being asked?
Offer to play a game, playdough, bake something, paint, draw, color, etc... without being asked?
Praise them for their good qualities, their good character traits, their good works, their progress, their efforts?
Smile?
Speak in love?
Let your eyes sparkle when you look at them?
Serve them willingly, and help them readily (i.e., get them a drink instead of making them get it themselves--even the older ones, get something for them that is upstairs, help them carry something, offer to help them with something before they ask, work with them on a chore or do a chore for them, make them something special, give them something special for no reason).
Allow God's love to pour through you on to them, even as you are correcting them?
Listen? Do you stop and look them in the eyes and listen when they are talking to you?
Forgive instantly?
(Incidentally, marriages can also get out of balance--write your own checklist for that!)
That's one checklist. Now, here's another. Do you realize the love God, your Father, pours upon you?
Do you realize that regardless of how you displease Him, how you disobey him, regardless of your weaknesses and mistakes:
He provides for you daily, with love.
You have shelter.
You have food.
You have warmth.
You have protection.
You have clothing.
You have 1000x more than your basic needs.
You have continual grace and mercy all day every day.
You have His listening ear 100% of the time.
You have His forgiveness.
For the sake of the heart of your children, DON'T FORGET TO LOVE. When all else fails:
LOVE NEVER FAILS. God has done some amazing work in our children. They are obedient. They are joyful. But I try to let God's love pour onto them as much as possible. I try to show grace, and mercy, and forgiveness, and joy, and delight in them. They are confident of my love for them. They rest in it. I may convey sometimes that I do nothing but wield the rod, chasten, correct and admonish--but... I do correct and train, but the love comes first.
God is more concerned with our hearts--not our actions (I was reminded of this in Sunday School last week). He is providential and all powerful. Our mistakes and actions can't mess up His plans. He is pleased when our actions are in His will, and He will reward us one day for that, but when we mess up, we can't mess Him up (what kind of God would He be if I could mess Him up and ruin His plan?). He is concerned with our hearts. Our obedience to Him. Our submission to Him. Our obedience is the key to our successful Christian walk. And we will obey someone who we know loves us.
Do you know how He loves you? Dear ones--you could never even imagine!
That is why His mercy is unending, and everlasting, and endures forever.
And if you are concerned with the heart of your children, don't let the love be missing.
Children will gladly and eagerly obey and submit to someone they know loves them--I mean, LOVES them. And that means, God's love is pouring onto them through you. If you can let God's love pour through you onto your children, then not only will they be obeying and submitting to you, but they will also be responding to God. They will grow to know His love for them, too.
Which is His plan in the first place.
LOVE.
The greatest of these is LOVE.
Today, we were working on calendars that our family makes every year for Christmas to give as gifts. Each month is a carefully decorated page with a picture and a scripture verse. As we began decorating February, at first I was loathe to use any pink, red, or hearts because I am not on board with cheesy, meaningless, money-wasting celebrations of Valentine's day. But because of how God has shown me about His love this week, I am so on board with love. So bring on the hearts! And pink glitter.
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
I Corinthians 13
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Jan. 1, 2008 - Untitled Comment