Thursday, April 1, 2010

The Heart of the Matter

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.
Psalm 3:5


So, I took the concept of loving people, especially those who are not particularly interested in me or my love, with an eternal perspective to heart and tried to put it into practice. And it worked...for about five minutes! That's about how long it took for those old feelings of hurt and bitterness to sneak back up to the surface. Oh, I would refocus on God and His love for them only to find myself saying, "Hey, what about me?"

"What about you, My daughter?"
"I want to be loved too. I want love to be safe."
"I do love you. You are safe with Me"
"I know."
"Do you really? Do you value My love? Do you trust My love?"
"Well...yes, of course I do."
"Then you are safe. Now I'm asking you to live and love like you believe it."

Ouch! Loving the hard to love is more about me and God than it is the person I'm trying to love. I know that I can trust Him and His love for me. He saw me through the loss of my precious baby, Peanut, and even turned my tragedy into triumph. And that's just one example of His tender love for me. He and I have history! God has proven to me that I can trust Him. Ok, I'll try again and again. "But God, why is it so hard? Shouldn't loving others be easier? Why does it sometimes feel like...well, suffering?"

"Unfortunately, my dear one, that is the only way you will learn obedience, not just in loving others but, in everything you do. And My Son modeled that for you. Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which he suffered. Hebrews 5:8"

So, loving others is really about trusting and obeying You. "Father, Author of my faith, please help me to trust you more."


2 comments:

created 4 art said...

Interesting journey, loving those that are hard to love. I think we all struggle with this one, sister, at times. We can be, in fact, that difficult one to love in someone else's eyes too. How hard is that? But when Jesus asked Peter "Do you love Me," there are various meanings to the word love there, I believe. My next study. :-) I think loving God to our utmost is the search. I think the rest just falls in line from there.

Kathi said...

You make a great point! And it's interesting because each time I've actually learned something (!) from this year's journey I've thought, "Well, I guess my lessons on love are over. I wonder what God will have me focus on next." And every time He has said, "Not so fast, there's more to learn here!" I have a feeling you may have uncovered the next part of my journey! Thanks for your thought-provoking comment. I look forward to seeing what God has to teach through your next blog!