L.O.V.E

Sometimes I question why God works with me the way He does? He truly pushes me to limits that I try to fight, then I remember – He is God and His will, will prevail whether I fight or not. I’ve chosen to go through the process – I chose to go through every process he brought me to, the day I dedicated my life to Him. I know that if he brought me to it, he will bring me through it. I don’t want to be like the Israelites where it took them 40years to complete an 11 day trip, to get to the promise land because they refused to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God!

It’s so easy to lift our hands in prayer, lift our hands and say ‘I Want to Know You’ but to know someone is to become like them, to yield yourself to them. To know someone is to agree with their ways, to know their heart & mind and THEN become walk with them! To know someone and to Love someone is to look beyond what they are doing, and why, and see them as God sees. To become like God it means you MUST die to self.

Recently God has been showing me the state of my heart; I had no desire to love someone in my life as I did before.  I thought because my desire to love them had died that I must walk – but love is not about a desire! It’s far from that! Love is a choice! Feelings change; if your feelings for me change than that’s okay, but love, well that can never change. I’m sure Jesus didn’t feel like carrying the cross to calvery and having them put nails in his hands and feet! They stretched him wide, and hung Him high, but Love kept Him there. He had the power to stop the whole thing! He could have lifted those nails out, got up, wiped the blood and kept it moving. But his Love, the burden of Love that He carried, it just wouldn’t let Him leave. We are called to represent God, for God is love. Even when we are married, we are called to represent Christ daily. To love beyond offence, feelings and selfish ways – to love beyond our own wants and needs. It means doing things you may not want to do, understand or quite simply hate. It requires vulnerability. I think sometimes people choose not to love because of fear, but perfect Love casts out fear. In love there is no fear – in God there is no fear, only love & faith!

I’ve learned recently in this season, that to love as I love myself; I had to actively create space between myself and them. It wasn’t healthy and neither was it practical for both of us to continue on the route we were going; in all honesty I told God I’d had enough of the drama, emotions and mess and I was ready to walk away from it all – I gave up on them! But I really I wasn’t walking away from them, I was walking away from the toxic, co-dependent bond we had formed – I was walking away from us. To walk away from a situation does not mean that we are walking away from the person, we just love ourselves and them enough to know when to let go. I let go as it no longer brought me peace; the Lord opened my eyes to the dynamic of the friendship and ask me to let go; it doesn’t mean that He called me to stop loving.

I am able to love them from a distance in this season; whether it brings them peace or not it brings me peace. To be led of the Holy Spirit means sometimes we may not understand. I think as Christians we nullify the 1 Corinthians 13 scripture and put it in a box solely for marriage, and then until we’re married we don’t walk in love. But how can you get married if you have not been processed to walk in love?

They’ll be days when you won’t feel like loving your husband or wife, and you’ll realise that love isn’t a feeling. You’ll want to ring his or her neck, hey, you may even ask God – remind me why I married this person again? But even your marriage isn’t about you! Yes, get used to that fact right now! It hurts but it’s true. In your marriage, friendships and relationships you are God with skin-on! It goes beyond you every minute of every day. We are called to bring Glory to God in all things, not just the areas of our life that we surrender to Him. That’s why you must pray for foresight if married or even single – pray that God will help you see the potential in your one day mate…and stick with that! Remember God NEVER brings the finished product! He could, but where would the fun in that be? God is a God of relation, I guess at one point even He was lonely – he Loved man so much that He said that it was not good for Him to be alone. That still blows me away…that God has not called us to be alone.

Love goes beyond feelings – it goes beyond our own wants and needs – it was love that kept Jesus on the cross and its love that keeps Him loving us daily, even when we fail Him. We must Love Him because He loved us first.

Remember real Love Never Fails.