Post 1. - Gods Love.

I honestly don't know if I can pull 50 out of my hat. I said I could do 50 because Gods love seems like something you should be able to write 50 posts about, but when I said to myself "What would the first one look like" It looked like this:









I felt a challenge to see if I could actually do it so if it flops it flops. But the 1st post finally came to me the other morning and so I'm writing 1 post.

I came home from a long day of work, that was immediately followed by a CPR/First Aid class that is a requirement to maintain my foster license. I trudged into my home where my sister-in-law would be waiting with my Precious, and discovered their whole family there having a devotional time together. I laid on the floor to listen in and consider drowsing.

In the time, I discovered that they'd gone downstairs to one of our neighbors (my brothers family lives right next door to me on the 2nd floor of a quad plex- a bldg with 2 houses upstairs, 2 houses downstairs). The downstairs neighbor direction below them, "J", is a single mom with 2 toddlers. She seems completely stressed out and while I've offered to help many times, she's never taken me up on it.

But on this particular day, my brother and his wife went downstairs and told her that God had laid her on their hearts and they wanted to help. What can they do? She didn't know but she began crying just because it touched her that God cared enough to send someone to her like this. (As a piece of back story, her children are named after two prophets, and she is a regular church-goer and active worker in her church.)

After some conversation my brother and his wife left her and wandered back to their home. And I wondered... What came of this? My fear is that nothing came of it. J will sit in her home with her two children and never say "I could use some help Tuesday night". But she will, temporarily, enjoy a bright, pretty moment where she feels Gods love. And her situation will not change.

As I threw my two cents into their devotional time about how we're like that with God - He says He loves us and we go OH HAPPY DAY and we think we're saved but we never take Him up on His offer to change our situation. He wants to effect our lives, carry our burdens, change our hearts; He wants to lead us into things our minds can't even imagine, but we stop at "He loves me" and then wander away.

I've been told twice, by very earnest people, that they were in love with me. I've had 3 separate people talk about how they wanted marriage with me. (The disparity in those numbers is not lost on me either.) But none of them said to me that they loved me and then went away. Quite the opposite actually. These people became the most profoundly difficult people to shake. Gifts, letters, e-mails, showing up on my doorstep, my workplace; once words like "I love you" had been spoken there immediately followed an active pursuit. Their lives, their day to day routines changed. My life changed as well because there was no simple "He loves me!" and I was able to walk away and carry on the way I was. They all wanted something from me. And they wanted to give me something in return. Probably the worst thing I could have done in those moments is walk away and go AWESOME! He loves me. See you later!

The morning after the devotional I was thinking about how God wanted to give me something beyond "I love you". And all I could think of was "Ask, and it shall be given you, Seek and you shall find, Knock and the door shall be opened."

My brother and his wife said Gods "I love you" to J, but for her to take advantage of it she needed to ask for something. They offered physical help, and she needed to say "here's where I need it". She had to ask. She likely won't.

But Gods promises are true and His love is profound. He'll say "I love you" but it's up to me then to begin asking, seeking, knocking. To take advantage of His love. To use it. To find Him in all the ways He's just waiting for me to find Him.

We say I love you quite often and nothing comes from it. God says I love you quote often and nothing comes from it. But He wants me to enter into that love and not just look at it and smile.