August 13, 2014
“Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are His dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.” Ephesians 5:1, 2 (NLT)
Isn’t it wonderful to be called a dear child of the Loving God. No matter how young or how old we are, each one of us needs to feel loved…needs to feel secure…needs to feel adored…needs to know beyond a doubt that it is so, and that we are His dear children. And from this knowledge and revelation, we are called to imitate and to follow the example of Yeshua Christ, to live a life filled (to occupy to full capacity) with love. To imitate Him in everything we do…filled in full, complete capacity with Love… “And He loved us and offered (by choice,) himself as a sacrifice…” God is Love. In His perfect timing…when it was time…while He could…while He became flesh…He loved well…while He could…in His perfect timing.
“Little children, let us not love (merely) in theory or in speech but in deed and truth (in practice and in sincerity).” 1 John 3:18 (AMP)
Love While You Can
We just returned from a trip to Waco to visit my mother-in-love, son and daughter-in-love, granddaughters, extended family and to introduce them to the newest member of the family…little Samuel. The pitter-patter was deafening at times when the wailing of a new-born was added to the family melody…But the timing…oh, yes, the timing was ‘perfection’! All of these children are blessed to enjoy their great-grandmother and cousins, aunts and uncles, grand-mothers and grandfathers, mothers and fathers…brothers and sisters…It is the season…It is a wonder-filled season with the grands and with extended family…and we are thankful. Did I mention that the timing was ‘perfection’?
Love While You Can
This is also the season when many of our friends are bearing the privilege and the responsibility of caring for aging parents. Having experienced this with Bill’s and my parents, we know that life comes full-circle…The keeper of the child…becomes the child of the keeper…
We also have seen the devastation and the shock of the unexpected when a family member or a friend’s family member is taken from this life suddenly, without warning…the shock…the disbelief…the what ifs’…You certainly understand…you know…
A few weeks ago, one of my dear friends received the dreaded phone call that her mother had fallen and the injury had taken her life. It just could not be because they were not through enjoying one another…they were not finished with their lives together… preparations were already made for her visit the next week…and her mom’s birthday celebration… Who would my friend call when she got into her car to travel…who would she call now? But, my dear friend is a woman who loves well…and she loves her family well…and she loved her mother well. She knows that in her heart.
I have many friends who have dropped everything in their lives to travel to aging parents who needed help…to Florida, to Ohio, to Pennsylvania, to California, to Dallas, to Waco, to Louisiana, to Cotulla, across town,
I have many friends and family members who have dropped everything to help a friend with a health crisis…to help their brother or sister…to help their child…to help their grand-child…
I have many friends and family members who have dropped everything to help a stranger…strangers who were desperate…
Bill and I certainly have had these experiences with family and with friends…we all have…and it is not easy…or convenient…or pleasant…or seemingly possible to…
Love While You Can…
God uses every experience in our lives to teach us…to reveal life lessons when we slow down and just are still…
Several months ago, one of our dogs was diagnosed with diabetes. The disease was acute and her symptoms appeared suddenly and her condition became critical. She had been our daughter’s dog in college, not quite ten years ago, and had been a gift from her (now) husband. We acquired her when it was apparent that she needed a bigger yard. Lexi was a beautiful Blue-Lacy, gun-metal gray…who loved to chase birds…squirrels…and who loved to swim with Bill every summer evening. She and the male Blue-Lacy we acquired from our son when he traveled too much to keep a dog, became companions to each other and the pool-time antics were hilarious.
Several months ago, Lexi became lethargic and the emergency trip to the vet proved to be devastating when her condition was diagnosed. However, a week later, and a hefty invoice later, Lexi was home with insulin and syringes, and with our commitment to give her shots twice a day, to regulate her food intake…and yes…to just love her. The prognosis was unknown…but, as the vet said, it was worth a try!
Lexi recovered and responded to treatment and lived a wonderful summer, full of energy…vitality…and continued her quest to chase every lizard, vulture, and bird, squirrel, and to bark incessantly…scaling the rock wall and returning…swimming and just being loved.
And then, the moment…the event about which we had been warned…a secondary condition from the terrible disease…and the emergency trip to the vet…the really hard news…and yes, the ride home…the back of the truck, empty…
Later that evening Bill texted me…
Love while you can…
And tears filled my eyes…as I re-read his message. Love while you can…
God uses every experience in our lives to teach us…to reveal life lessons when we slow down and just are still…
Love while you can…
It did not take this experience with a beloved pet to teach me this lesson…no, we know all too well how precious life is…how some moments rush by and others are too heavy to bear and time stands still…How much it hurts to see loved ones and friends hurt and suffer…
But what a tangible reminder of these lessons…
LOVE costs something…
Bill and I certainly had to readjust our lives, literally, to accommodate this beautiful animal. And we imposed our responsibility on our daughter when we could not be in town to give the shots and to feed. Oh…but she was worth it! Lexi knew that we wanted to help her…she knew that she was loved…she knew that Bill enjoyed his swims with her…she knew…and we saw it in her eyes…she was devoted to us…Love while you can…
Love costs something…You know this…Love costs something when you sacrifice your time, energy, resources, your feelings, your love… for your aging, perhaps cranky, parent…for your stressed husband or wife…for your ungrateful toddler…for your wailing new-born…for your demanding boss…for your desperate friend…Love costs something…
The persecuted Christians in Africa and in the Middle East know that Love costs something…many are paying with their lives…
You may be bearing the cost of your Love at this moment…at home, in the work-place, in your marriage, in your friendship, with a business partner, a family member…Love costs something…
Our Lord was willing to pay the excruciating and unbearable and unthinkable cost…because He is Love…and in the perfect timing of His Father…He chose to pay the cost of Love…and He bears the Cost of Love for each one of us…He helps us to carry it…to carry on.
But…Love Transforms Everything…
The power of love…There is no doubt that Love has changed everything…When one is willing to make the trip to see a relative…to drive across town to feed a friend with a new baby, to sit with a friend suffering from and battling cancer, to help an aging parent into a wheelchair for a ride in a park, to adjust a busy schedule for someone else, to wash the laundry and fold the towels, to listen quietly to a frustrated spouse, to refuse to pick up an offense from a upset friend, to carve out time in a schedule to visit a great-grandmother…or a lonely grand-parent, or give a meal to a hungry stranger, no questions asked…or to care for and love God’s creatures, great and small…the power of love changes everything! And it changes everyone involved…
Without exception, every time that you or I are enveloped by and demonstrate the Love of Yeshua Christ, every time…Love transforms…it changes the bestower of the love or it changes the recipient of the love…and, and He always is willing to change both! But Love never goes without return…never. If anyone is touched by love, they are never the same. We are called to imitate Christ…and the Cost of Love is transforming…
“We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, also are we in this world.” 1 John 4:16-17 (NASB)
Love While You Can…Loving Well…
“And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “So you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour? Keep watching and praying…” Matthew 36:40-41 (NASB)
Love While You Can…Loving Well…
Yeshua Christ gave His disciples instructions in the direst moments following the Passover meal, The Last Supper. He lead them to the olive grove on Gethsemane and asked them to “Keep watch and to pray…”and we know the familiar passage as Jesus cried out to His Father in anguish as He anticipated the things to come…He knew exactly what was to occur…and because He was completely flesh…His struggle was more wrenching than anything we could ever know or experience…He was The Son of God and was praying and asking His Father to take away the cup of suffering and yet, He resolved Himself, with each agonizing cry to then ask for His Father’s will to be done… “My Father! If this cup cannot be taken away until I drink it, Your will be done.” Matthew 36:42
Ohhhhh. How many times has my Lord given me instructions…I can certainly identify with the disciples as drowsiness, as distraction, as fear, as grief, as discouragement, as worry, as my humanness has interrupted what God instructed me to do for the moment. I have often thought about the disciples and how on that dreadful evening, when they had only hours left with their Messiah and their humanness overcame them…
I think that most of us have experienced the sense of realization when we have failed to spend moments well…when we have been overcome by weariness, drowsiness, distraction, fear, grief, discouragement, worry and “humanness”…only to be left with a sense of guilt…with guilt when we do not act when we should, when I do not act…
What is so amazing and beautiful is that Yeshua Christ knew their hearts, He knew their weakness…He knew their humanness. And I know, that the guilt and the disappointment in themselves must have been tremendous…I can identify with those feelings because I have failed to spend many of my moments accordingly…I have failed to make that visit…to make the phone call…to send the note…to remember to pray…to speak words of blessing…to get up from sleep and to write down a clear thought or message…Yes, He knows my heart.
But Yeshua Christ tucked into the hearts and the spirits of His disciples His love, His peace, and His forgiveness so that their lives would be strengthened and empowered to become the mighty men of God which He called them to be…They were not crippled by their moments of weakness. Those moments did not define their future…because of Yeshua Christ…
Part of “Loving While You Can”…and “Loving Well” consists of accepting God’s forgiveness when we fail to spend our moments accordingly in the time that we have. Each one of us faces the truth that there are times when we could have done more, helped more, been more considerate, been more attentive…been more understanding…been more diligent…But our Yeshua Christ tucks into our hearts and our spirits, His love, His peace, and His forgiveness so that our lives can be strengthened and empowered; then, we are able to become the mighty women of God, who He has called us to be…We are not crippled by our moments of weakness. Those moments do not define our futures…because of Yeshua Christ.
“For Christ’s love compels us…” 2 Corinthians 5:14 (NIV)
When we have encountered and experienced the radical and transforming Love of Yeshua Christ…we are never the same. No longer are we content with mediocrity in relationship with the Living God…relationships with people…with spouses, with children, with extended family, with friends, with co-workers, with neighbors, with the world…
No longer are apathy and complacency acceptable in relationships because the Love of the Living Messiah is electric and quaking to our hearts and to our souls…No longer are we content or comfortable in our self-sufficiency and self-absorption…we are compelled…
We are compelled…we are pressed…we are pushed…we are required…we are obliged…by the Love of Christ…His Love becomes the driving force in our lives… And we are compelled to Love Well, While We Can.
I am so thankful that we serve a Mighty, Loving God who knows and understands the cost of Love…it cost Him everything! But because of Him, Love changes, transforms everything…everyone He touches.
I pray that we respond as we are compelled to live and to love as Yeshua Christ did on this earth and as He does for eternity. I pray that we would invest our moments in Loving Well While We Can!
And, I pray that when we fail, and we will, that we would ask for and accept, with a contrite heart, God’s forgiveness and mercy and grace, so that we can commit anew the moments of our lives as we Love While We Can, everyone God places in our lives…forsaking our weariness, our drowsiness, our distraction, our business…no matter how messy…how fussy…how inconvenient…how exasperating…how challenging those people might be…that we would be willing, and able by God’s grace to be filled to capacity with His Love…then, to spend His Love…and to be transformed by the power of His Love…always…and forever.
And, you never know how your love will affect another life; you never know how your love will affect the Kingdom of God!
Love While You Can…Every Time You Can…In the Best Way You Can!
Abundant love and joy,
