Once again the message of LOVE permeates my devotional time. I’ve seen love as a commitment, as an intense emotion, as a goal to strive for, as a desire to protect—and then I read the three little books of John and hear over and over how we are to “be” love. The more we love the more obedient we are, the more we surrender knowing what to surrender to. These characteristics are the ones portrayed to us by Christ’s time on earth as He lived obediently to His Father’s purposes. Now John is telling us that this is our purpose. To live surrendered to Christ and obedient to Him as He modeled so well.

I’m trying to write this message and as I do I am processing all that God has been dealing with me. He has been dealing a great deal with faith, trust, surrender, obedience and now He is awakening what is foundational to them all–LOVE. It is so much easier to live life fully surrendered and obedient when you love and sense being loved. I’ve always tried to do loving things like doing my work well, singing for the right purposes, taking garden produce to my kids, etc. This has been love. Now to “be” love is a new awakening.

Last night a gentleman I’ve sponsored for a few years called to thank me for loving him, understanding him and giving him insights he couldn’t find. He told me I was like a loving dad. Boy, this makes me tear up. God is so faithful and He has such wonderful ways of showing it to each of us. His emphasis of late on Love has helped me to begin to see love in each day.

My life didn’t start knowing love. I knew commitment. God is now showing me that my childhood is my past and I can be free from its lies. A new day is here.

As I was finishing the chapter of I John 4 again this morning I began to read chapter 5. As I turned the page something unexpected happened. It was the last chapter of this little book and I said, “No God, let there be more!” I’ve never read a book of the Bible before where I didn’t want the book to end. The awakening to God’s message of LOVE which John delivers so well is one I’ve needed all of my life.

As I was starting my devotional reading this morning I opened the first one and the verse said, “How much better to get wisdom than gold! And to get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver.” Proverbs 16:16. The devotional went on to talk about our priorities which should never be to place money as our motivation when God is then made second. We can not serve two masters. However, the only message in this verse for me was “wisdom” and “understanding”. I have spent a lifetime reading the bible through. My goal for years was to read it through once each year. But, today, the motivation to finish the bible is gone. To understand the wisdom for which it speaks is my only goal.

I don’t know how many of us struggle with the understanding of love like I have and do. However, I’m finding a yearning I’ve never had before to not only find love from the sake of God’s wisdom, but to understand love. It is the understanding of love which then becomes the “being” love which God is and for which I wrote about yesterday. I think this will take the rest of my life and….

The book of John and the three books of I, II, III John have a huge message I’ve not understood or accepted well throughout my life thus far. This is the message of love. There is no disciple of Christ who addresses love in their writing as much as John does. Paul certainly addresses it in I Corinthians 13 as he writes to the christians of Corinth. Yet, John’s entire theme of writing is significantly and continuously bringing the reader back to the critical side of love. I John 4 emphasizes this and today my eyes were opened to this in ways I’ve not seen before.

Love is a noun first and foremost. God is Love. They are synonymous terms. Love is also a verb. It is an action verb and it also is a state of being verb. Today God is addressing my need to understand Love as a state of being verb. I have struggled my entire life with who I am. I committed early in my life to never BE like my dad or BE like my brother. (The state of being verb.) In fact, I didn’t want to be like any of my brothers as far as the way they handled love. I was going to do a better job at this. Little did I know that I would end up “being love” very similarly to my brothers. Also, in addition, I learned to fear what I saw man do with what he called love. This love looked too much like abuse and for me it was abuse.

Today I see in I John 4:16–“And we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” I’ve known living in fear, I’m learning what it is to actually live in love. Christ told us to be discerning with man, not to judge him, but to discern him. In this category of love, I’ve feared far more than anything else. I see all of this quite clearly today and now God is wanting to begin replacing this fear with Him–His Love. This time I accept the invitation with open arms!

Well, let me address yesterday—as I left the pickup and explained the problem/s, I was told it is likely _____________ and it will be about $2,500.00 which the pickup is barely worth. I left it and went to address some car items for my daughter which were scheduled and simply maintenance (I’m good at dealing with them). Later when I called to see what I was up against with the pickup, I found that their concern wasn’t the problem and it would be a few hundred rather than a few thousand to repair it! My anxiety I spoke about yesterday? Well, God tells me to give it to Him rather than carry it around for years as I had done. The problem with the pickup has always been the same. My fears are what made it worse and my not addressing the fears continued the anxiety. A very strong lesson.

Today’s devotional message from all sources centered around something else God is wanting me to address–bearing fruit. I’m praying for the ministries I work with–Celebrate Recovery and Restoration Classes. God is asking me if I am ready to be a “tree planted by the river of water bringing forth its fruit in its season?” (Psalms 1:3) The devotionals both spoke of bearing fruit and I John chapter 3 talks about showing and living God’s love, not living my biases.

I loved the analogy of my life being like a tree which bears God’s fruit. This tree gets its nutrients from the “river of life–God’s life” which it is planted by. If this is true I will attract those who desire the fruit. The fruit is tasty and safe to eat. It actually brings healing to the soul of man. This fruit is noticed particularly by those living in shame, guilt, mistrust and the list goes on. I can’t do this on my own. This is what God transforms in us as we continue to walk with Him daily and surrender the biases of life we (I) possess which tell others our fruit can’t be trusted.

God is so amazing! He wants my work—our work for Him to be His Kingdom Work which can only be done if our source of strength comes from His river of life.

Today I am tackling something I’ve been putting off for years. I am far from a mechanic. Even though I can often know what a problem is, dealing with it or repairing it is beyond me. My pickup has had one of these issues for several years. I don’t drive it often so I’ve put off dealing with it. However, the problem is worsening so the time has come. I’ve made the appointment for this morning. Kathy is following me in and I’m leaving it. Even though I know the people well who own the business, I have a huge, anxious spirit. I look forward to it being fixed, but….

I write this because this example typifies my level of trust with things I don’t know. I’ve always said I’m not one to procrastinate, but I procrastinate to the extreme when I’m dealing with unknowns such as this. If there is anyway possible I can live with the problem, I will instead of tackling it and finding out how “stupid” I was in having it fixed. This is “old me” talking I know, but this is real me in the present who needs to take this step into faith.

I am not sure what God is wanting me to learn from today’s lesson, but I do know He has been nudging me to take the step being taken today. I’ll be glad when the unknown is known and what the learning is to be from this step. This is such an example of knowing what I know, but living each day what I believe instead of know. I sure need to grow my “believing”!

Each Thursday morning I meet with a gentleman who comes to our home. This man has his own struggles and is working to overcome. We are going through a book entitled, I Give You Authority. It is one we chose because so often in recovery each one of us butt up against our belief system that we are unworthy of any healing due to our past. We may know this isn’t true but our day to day living doesn’t often act as though we believe it.

This book was suggest to me for the two of us by my prayer warrior. When I had asked her to be praying for this man she asked me to consider taking him through this book. I must tell you that it is not only a huge help for him but also for me. The author does an excellent job allowing the reader to grow in the understanding that it is not so much what we know about God, Jesus and The Holy Spirit, it is far more about how much time we spend with them. As we sup with them daily and throughout the day, our intimacy grows with them and we develop more and more of the Christ-like characteristics and beliefs.

This is exactly the way Christ lived while here on earth. Scripture tells us in all of the gospels how Christ would go away on his own to spend time with His Father. In so doing, God continued to minister to His Son, lead and guide Him and acknowledge Him for Who He really is. He wants to do the same for you and me if we will grow our time spent with Him. He doesn’t want to just be our GOD. He also wants to be our most intimate Friend. I sure want to grow in this area allowing my belief system to more fully understand who I am in God my Father.

One of the beauties of living in our country–USA has been the certainty of our freedom. From the human level it is a grace much bigger than I’ve ever comprehended. I could plan things and I wouldn’t even give a thought to the fact that they’d take place. This would be the case with work in the school system, volunteer work with church, singing events, trips, whatever.

Today has a very different sense to it when things are being planned. There is no certainty in any of them. The camp three of my grandsons were to attend next week is cancelled, the work I do with schools cannot be outlined specifically because there are no certainties for the delivery of educational services, the process of conducting classes for our ministries is left uncertain, our quartet can only prepare in case the event does take place, and more. All of this has brought to me the reality of scripture reminding us to not worry about tomorrow. Matthew 6:34 says, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” It is one thing to know this and claim this verse, it is another thing to let tomorrow go and rejoice in today.

I have written numerous times how I naturally live in the world of tomorrow in my mind. I don’t know if this is totally due to my childhood where I learned to not be present in the day so that I could endure the days of abuse, or if it is simply a genetic thing. Either way, learning to let tomorrow go is a new reality for me. Enjoying only the beauty of today is my lesson. Today I will do my best to enjoy what God has put before me and stay there in my mind.

Yesterday morning was spent getting the word out about the virtual Celebrate Recovery Summit on July 30&31. There are several from Sunday’s meeting who committed to work on this. I had nothing but positive response and some commitments to attend with us at our church doing it on the large screen. I found it disturbing to awake this morning a little before 4:00 am to have my mind filled with all the obstacles which will impede any attempt to grow the Celebrate Recovery ministry or the Restoration ministry classes starting this fall. Every positive we had talked through on Sunday was met with a bigger negative as my mind processed this. As I write this I’ve given all of this to God. I know this fear is about me and my own personality. I’m always eager to challenge a problem. Addressing the obstacles as genuine barriers never enter my mind until an initial plan is in place. It is then the what if’s begin to appear. This morning they appeared as boulders! So, I will lean on the promises of God for this is His Work we are joining, not the work of man.

I will say that if the present pandemic were facing us 12 years ago when we first started the Celebrate Recovery ministry, we wouldn’t have even begun. At that point in my life I didn’t have the confidence in the faith that God would use me and others no matter what obstacles stood in the way. I saw the obstacles more than I saw God. Today I still have the fears but I also have the God of Miracles to give them to. How grateful I am!

Our God is certainly magnificent! I’m so grateful for God’s reminder yesterday morning to stay awake to the entire day rather than just the meeting to take place after lunch. Every aspect of the day was orchestrated by God and I would have missed much of it if I’d stayed in the state of mind I was in as I awoke yesterday morning. Remembering to trust God and thank Him for being able to take part in His Work is what I was missing.

The meeting yesterday did go so well. The heart of each participant was seen and heard. Gathering the hopes and dreams from each one and then the obstacles which seem to be in the way makes it easy to put the prayer list together. It also makes it easier to know where God is in all of it and whether we are to let certain ones go as they are about us and not Him, or watch the obstacles crumble because God is “making the way possible”.

I love how God works and how He takes us by the shoulders and turns us in His direction as we attempt to do His bidding. He is an amazing God and I never want to forget this.

Today is meeting day. As I began my journaling to Jesus I started with this statement. Instantly I was reminded that the meeting today is simply 2 hours of the entire day. God’s Spirit was reminding me that this morning I am singing with the worship team, listening to a sermon by one of our pastors who I’ve been praying for, spending an hour or so prepping lunch for the group and following the meeting this afternoon I’m taking 3 grandsons shopping for their summer camp supplies. God said He doesn’t want the enjoyment of all these other parts missed because I was too focused on one element. The meeting is His and my trust needs to reflect that by the peace I have from surrendering it.

I don’t usually lead the Celebrate Recovery meetings. Turning the ministry leader role over to another gentleman a couple years ago allowed me more time to devote to our Tuesday night restoration classes. However, today the ministry leader was gone on vacation so he asked if I’d take charge which I was happy to do. In so doing it has given God ample time to get me focused on Him and fully see where my trust in Him has been lagging. I love how much He continues to grow me (us) in our relationship with Him. Intimacy is filled with trust and there is no one I’d want to be intimate with like I do with God, Jesus and The Holy Spirit. The other thing which God did is bring the ministry leader home last night. He text me late saying he is home and will be here for the mtg today. I’ll still lead but having his input is important.

So, things are ready. Now I sense anticipation for what God will reveal as we process. But, before this I get to worship Him fully and listen to some excellent wisdom He has bestowed on our pastor delivering the sermon! Afterwards, it is 3 grandsons!