Love Works!

This morning a friend of mine posted this picture on Facebook.  It got me thinking.  Parenting seems to go better when I am postured to love and enjoy my children, and while I may know that to be true, sometimes I don’t parent like that.  Sometimes I’m just frustrated and want my kids to do what I want, so I try subtly or overtly manipulating their behavior.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  While I am NO parenting expert, I have sought to build good, Christ-like character into my children.  However, the older they get, the more their will interacts with mine and we collide.  In the end, it’s really God’s job to build Christ-like character in His children, we get to partner with Him in the process through cooperation, obedience and abiding in Him…loving Him, enjoying Him.

When I enjoy my children I parent from a different place...one of hopeful love, instead of condemnation.  Things naturally go better and I can trust the process because I know God is the ultimate author of their story and He holds all the details – even the messy ones.  Good thing too, because I have a few messy places in my own story!

So what am I getting at? .... God likes His kids, messy and all!  I like the exhortation of the words on that picture, not because I don’t think behavior is important, but because joy and love root good behavior and establish our character.  The ‘being loved’ grounds the ‘doing love’.  At least that’s what scripture says (Eph 3:14-21).  

I wonder if I assume that God 'parents' me they way I sometimes parent my children - more concerned about getting me to do what He wants, and less concerned about the two of us enjoying a relationship together (Zeph 3:17).  Do I, do we, make the assumption that God is up there in the heavens subtly or overtly manipulating circumstances to manage our behavior? It would then make sense why we scramble about looking for ways to do what we think God wants us to do; hiding when we’ve failed, standing proud as the Pharisee when we get it right.   My kids copy what I do because it has been imprinted upon them through loving relationship, and I suppose it’s the same with God.  He enjoys us and loves us, and from that place we live and move and have our being in Him?  

Pride and shame are left powerless when the heart is infused with the infinite love of God.  

Love automatically compels a righteous response and action.  We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).   It is not ‘soft on sin’ as I’ve often heard it said - that's tolerance..Tolerance is not love. In fact, it's the opposite.  Love finds truth and greets it with a kiss. (Ps. 85-10-13)  Love grieves deeply the course of sin.  Love is what makes remorse weep, crying out for redemption, and banking on forgiveness.  

After raising a few others from death, love held Christ on a cross unto death.  And it is the power of God’s love that pierced the tomb with eternal life; making it available to you and me.  So when loving is difficult, we return to the source – the place where God’s love was poured out.  We return, remember and receive.  We are dependent upon it.  It is only from that place of receiving His love that we can even begin to think of loving others…and loving other’s is exactly what God would want us to do!...I guess we’ve come full circle.

So I’m going to try a little experiment.  Rather than feeling obligated or forced to “do the right thing”, I am going realize I won’t get it all right – there’s no possible way!  And instead, I’ll begin by practicing God’s presence, mess and all, knowing He ultimately pens the story.  I’m going to try with each new opportunity, to return my thoughts to Christ’s love, remember His life set aside for mine and that it was for the JOY set before Him that He did so! (Hebrews 12:2), and as best I can, with open dependent hands, receive the resource of grace He offers that I may do the same for others…I am going to try meditating on His love and genuine delight, and see if it will lead to doing what He wants me to do.  

So what do you think?  Do you dare trust love to be so powerful...so transforming? 

Interested in joining me to find out??  

Safe-Keeping

“You Yourself have recorded my wanderings. Put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your records?” – Psalm 56:8

The other day I was looking for something at my parent’s house.  I haven’t lived with them for long time, so occasionally my search requires some snooping .  While I was looking, I came across a box of my dad’s.  It was just the sort of place that may hide what I had been looking for. 

What I found instead was a much better treasure.  The contents of the box held no monetary value whatsoever; but still my heart burst as I caught a glimpse.  They were things only a father – now grandfather- would hold dear.  It contained a picture of his parents walking along a city street, holding hands and in love.  There was a scrap of paper with words penned by my grandfather, making record of his personal, living encounter with Christ. My dad had saved my very first business card.  There was a small case marked “tooth”.  Things from my brother were in there, my daughter’s picture and a baseball picture of my son were there as well, along with some of the little trinkets he'd been given over the years.  All things held special by a father …or a son…or a grandfather.

Seeing that little box and what it held inside surprised me.  The sudden realization of quiet, vigilant love spanning decades will do that.  While I was racing through my teens, he was collecting the moments.  While I was consumed in raising toddlers, he was storing the snapshots, when his own parents passed he wasn't fighting for investments, he was preserving their story.  Holding each one close, tucked away safe from decay or forgotten-ness.

My dad and I many years ago
walking in the snow with my kiddos 

It hit me as I walked away from such a tiny archive that God’s love is similar.  He records our wanderings and puts our tears in his bottle (ps 56).  Every little bit recorded and preserved for His safe keeping.  Why?  Because he vigilantly loves us.  While we are racing through life, God is collecting our moments, keeping them ready for the day when we are willing to pause and remember with Him.  While we are consumed with the stress life brings, God is preserving snapshots, holding each anxious thought present.  While we may be distracted, investing in this world, God is recording our story, caring most about the words being penned upon our heart. What really matters are the living encounters that cannot be measured by a 401-k or the praises of man.  Sometimes we go looking for one thing and find something far greater.

God holds your story, and He holds mine.  The years are not wasted or lost on Him.   When I saw what my earthly father treasured, I gushed silently, “He’s held all these things dear!  All these seemingly insignificant things have been treasures to him.  For years!”  I have always known my dad loves me, but this time it was different.  I had taken a glimpse of his heart and better understood the depth of His love.  Rest assured God has a box like that, and it holds similar things – “worthless things” of infinite value to Him.