Have you ever felt like a tiny little puddle, just laying there with no control over what is happening to you or around you? Sometimes when we're stricken by pain we can feel that way, like we are powerless to maintain our old self and are forced to stop all activity that was healthy or positive and just deal with the uninvited intruder to our body! Other times there may be a circumstance that is beyond our control and we are called to rise up with a love that we feel is unattainable by human effort. Every part of us wants to scream for deliverance because our fears appear to darken any possibility of love succeeding. Hope, seeming like a red hot handle that we dare not grab because it means there will be pain involved as we are called to set our anger, resentment and bitterness down. We feel like our only choices are to remain stagnant or to free fall, and neither is really a choice, is it?
I've found that in our refusal to surrender to God, He will send more rain! Our puddle swells and as the surface tension expands to its limit, it finally breaks and begins to run off. I used to see this as a, "Come on God!, Are you serious!" moment! Just when we think we can't take anymore, we are pushed to breaking! Yet, what we call breaking....God calls expanding, because He knows everything that is to come, all the twists and turns and all the blessings they will bring! Our tiny mud puddle breaks forth and becomes a stream that now has a chance to reach beyond, a chance to know things that are deeper! The overflow is not a strike by God saying, "There take that!", rather, it's a way of escape and anyone who is stuck in a circumstance knows what even the smallest change can mean when you feel trapped!
A couple weeks ago I started a bible study by Beth Moore at our church. Each week I can see the hand of God as he intervenes in the circumstances of my life and draws a common theme....."Your puddle my precious one, will swell and flow until it flows into my ocean of limitless love." I'm finally seeing the bridge that takes me from despair to hope! I always thought of the process as being that my prayer should bring a result from God and if it didn't, well, He just didn't love me. That kind of thinking has kept me in a prison for years but through this study I'm learning how to run to my Heavenly Daddy, search the Word (Jesus) for what He wants to say to me, then, invite the Holy Spirit into all of it so He can enable and guide me to victory through my trials!
This week we learned about agape love, which is God's divine unconditional love. We can never love in that divine fashion BUT He can pour that love through us and enable us to love like He does. I needed this exact lesson at exactly this time in my life! My husband's mother is quite old and progressively getting worse in health. Her other son is Kevin, my brother in law, and he is mentally handicapped, kinda like rain-man but more talkative and funny. He has such an innocent and child-like personality, even though we are both in our fifties, that makes him easy to love! Having him here part-time has been an adjustment but its worked out fine over the years. Recently though, we are faced with the reality that he will be our full-time son and our lives will change dramatically, forever. We will be having to be responsible for another human being, his seizures and medical problems and our privacy and freedom will be gone. I was blinded by fear and anxiety this week as I wrestled with this reality.
God spoke to me though, through this weeks lesson, and revealed to me that agape love is more of an action than a feeling. Beth writes, "Agape always flows from what is right and best. We will discover that God commands us to agape. He is not commanding us toward a feeling, He is commanding us to surrender to an act of His Spirit which results in obedience.....Agape is not fueled by the desire of its recipient; it is fueled by the need.....Agape love means God did what humanity most needed." I took those words and changed the names, "Agape love means Dee did what Kevin most needed." I saw the difference between a life of doing and a life of loving. Believe it or not I never distinguished the two! Mother Theresa said, "It's not how much we do, but with how much love we do it."
In 1 peter 4:8 it says, "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins." God showed me a deeper truth into that scripture this week and He revealed to me that by loving others, God's mercy is more and more available to us! At the end of this life, when we stand before God, all that will matter is.....did you love others. That mercy given by God will expand as we let God expand His acts of agape love through us in our life! Our fears and our selfishness keep us from knowing the expansive love of God, AND, those fears and selfish choices keep others from knowing God's divine love through us! Fear happens when we step out of the moment and try to go ahead. Our peace, our service, our love is now!
I'm trusting God that if I obey His command to surrender to an act of His Spirit that He will take care of everything I'll need to get through. I want love and joy in my life, not anger and resentment. My story is a long one with many reasons to be angry but now that I finally understand that God's Spirit will help me with everything, I'm choosing to release my bitterness. Life rarely goes as planned and anything outside our plans can rattle our world! We can be overcome by feelings of panic and anxiety that separate us from God's truth about how He can put peace where there's challenge, joy where there's sadness and ability where there's crippling fear! I'm letting Him overflow my puddle into a stream, a river, a lake, an ocean of His love that will enable me to be loved and to love! Whatever comes....His grace will be sufficient.
1 Corinthians 13:7-8, Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
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