Learning to love

Today is a beautiful day. I am sitting watching the sun melt away the frost on part of the roof of the library. As it moves along and brings warmth to each section of the roof, it leaves moist reminders of the cold that encased previous areas.

As I watch I am reminded of how God is moving within sections of my heart and bringing his warmth. The moist areas left behind in my heart represent pain residues from things I have clung to; things I have put before him. So I am gradually but faithfully being freed from the dark cold grip that encased my heart. As I feel the warmth rush in I feel I am being made beautiful all over again.

As part of this stripping process I am being moved to live beyond my words in a very real way. It's not enough for me to say "I love you Lord." Or "It is my desire to be made more like you." Or even, and this is a good one, "I really really desire to act as Jesus would." God is holding me to my words. How? Through the work of the Holy Spirit in my life softly but firmly urging me to live beyond my comfort zone.

Recently I felt led to do something I would not usually do. And for the first time in a long time, I did not hesitate, I simply obeyed. And as I did, I knew the Holy Spirit was speaking on my behalf. I also knew, I was being released in a sense. See I have struggled with the concept of love. And I don't mean the fuzzy love, eros, or the feeling of love and even that is still a struggle. I mean love in action. Love when it hurts to love. And God knows this. He also knows there is no way I can love him freely and completely until I learn to love those he loves freely and completely. So this 'something' I was led to do was a little lesson in love. God was calling me to love someone through a certain action.

God taught me this morning that one aspect of loving him is stepping out in faith and one way of showing that I love him is to love those he loves... It's not about feeling it but about doing it. That is the common misconception about faith. Faith is not feeling. I don't feel the desire to worship Jesus. I worship Jesus and then I am overwhelmed with feeling for him. My love for Jesus becomes so real in my ACT of worship. And funny thing about love, God's love, is that it does not say anything about being loved in return... but that is a lesson for another day. So, things have begun to change. It is no longer a "Lord help me love you more" and then I sit down and do nothing... It has become active. This is not to say I am completely overwhelmed with love for everyone. It is to say I have learned that to be overwhelmed with love is to obey what God asks and wait for him to handle the rest.

So here I am, living on faith-not feeling, and learning to love.

Photo from Caro's Lines