|
Excerpt: If any one quality can make me more likable to you or change your heart for me, it’s genuine kindness. Learning to love brings a joy that looking for love can’t provide. I find joy in seeking your joy.
0 Comments
Excerpt: Only unconditional love can restore a breach. A love I give even if my ‘conditions’ aren’t met. God loves that way and calls me to. But I can’t love well if I feel unloved. So I need God to love like God. Excerpt: Warning signs of drifting apart: Looking to your spouse for needs only God can meet. When you lose your awe. When desires control you. When love is a duty, not a joy. When you forget your friend. Excerpt: Drifting apart? Identify when we started drifting and why. We drift if I focus on your faults. If I lose touch with your heart. If I say I love you but my choices say otherwise. If love becomes a duty, we drift. Excerpt: What do you do if you and your spouse drift apart? Discern where things are at now. Recall the early years. We avoid remembering for fear it’ll raise hopes. So the God of hope reminds us, hoping it does. Excerpt: Jesus sees our sin but it doesn’t change his love for us or our worth in His eyes. If an appraiser pays a million for my old lamp, my view of the lamp changes. The price God paid to have me is His Son. Excerpt: Decision making is difficult. This post offers tools to help with the dilemmas that come with decision making: Inertia, lack of motivation, a cluttered mind, too many options, perfectionism and uncertainty. Excerpt: Having worth and being worthy aren’t the same. Am I worthy of mercy? No. But I have worth. So do you. You can’t earn mercy. Mercy comes at a price, but it’s paid by the giver, not the receiver. Excerpt: I can hold a view of me that isn’t true. To see me rightly, I must see me as God does. I must trust His appraisal of my worth. I tend to see me as my Dad did. But what if Dad was wrong? What if my mirror is wrong? Excerpt: I know Jesus lives, yet I’m unsure He’s here. If I forget He’s real, I’lI treat Him like He’s not. I don’t talk nor listen. I’ll drive all day with Plastic Jesus yet ignore the real one. Jesus, wake me from my unbelief!
Excerpt: You’re here for a purpose. Find it. You have a gift. Use it. But do your work with God. He is who they need. You won’t impact lives for God unless
you live your life with God. So walk with God. Work with God. Excerpt: What keeps me from knowing God is my need to be known. Known for what I’m good at. God wants me to excel, but if I do it to prove myself, I can’t be myself. If I play to the gallery, I won’t play well. Excerpt: Christ lives here. In this heart of mine He calls home. He knocked. I opened. He entered and waited. Just inside the entryway. That was years ago. Where is He now? Somewhere in this house I call my life. Excerpt: They’re His children before they’re yours. You’re His son or daughter before you’re their parent. Pleasing Him comes before pleasing your spouse. He calls you to Himself before He calls you to a mission. Excerpt: Kids must feel safe. But not at the expense of feeling loved. I measure me by what I do. Kids measure me by how I love. Plan for later, but love them now. We think we need their attention. They need ours more. Excerpt: What Jesus said to paralyzed men gives me hope for my paralyzed mind. He lets me know I’m known. I find hope to get well once I admit I’m not. I find my worth in His delight not my discipline. So I can swing away. Excerpts: Signs of paralysis: I stay busy to avoid life. I’m never ‘sure’. I overthink until I can’t think. If I don’t try, I won’t fail. Too many options to choose. I’ll do it right or I won’t do it. I avoid goals. I'd rather dream than decide. Excerpt: Jesus asked a paralytic if he wants to be healed. Why? Because we stop asking once we stop hoping. I resign myself to my mat. Unsure if God even wants to heal me. If He did, He would. He hasn't. Why ask again? Excerpt: I dream of homers yet never swing away. Bad decisions can ruin us but so can indecision. Like Thoreau, I wish to live deliberately. I don’t want to come to the end and find I never lived. Excerpt: Ever feel like no one sees you? A blind man in John 9 can't see nor is he seen. Except by himself. He likely sees himself as others do: Unworthy of notice. But Jesus noticed. His broken heart had broken God's. Excerpt: I can so easily miss the beauty right in front of me. How? I get distracted by the life I want and don’t have. Or by the life I have but don’t want. So I miss what it is I really want most: God. The same God who wants me. Excerpt: A solar eclipse illustrates what happens when my desires consume me. Desire itself isn't the issue. God wants us to desire and enjoy His gifts. The issue is: I'm prone to want His gifts more than Him. Excerpt: How I see God shapes how loss affects me. If I think God took my love, I won't bring Him my hurt. If I think God should be enough, I'll feel guilty if He’s not. He won’t shame me for grief. He’ll grieve with me. Excerpt: If the loss of love breaks your heart, don’t hide your pain or minimize your loss. God doesn’t. Nor does He try to take the place of your loved one. No one can. Not even God. But He'll take His. Beside you. If you let Him. Excerpt: I'm glad God loves me. But I also want love with skin on! Yes, this want could eclipse my desire for God. Yet He wired us for love and said it isn't good for man to be alone. So He hurts for us whenever we are. |
