december9.

Be willing to go out on a limb with Me. If that is where I am leading you, it is the safest place to be.  Your desire to live a risk-free life is a form of unbelief.  Your longing to live close to Me is at odds with your attempts to minimize risk.  You are approaching a crossroads in your journey.  In order to follow Me wholeheartedly, you must relinquish your tendency to play it safe. 

Let Me lead you step by step through this day.  If your primary focus is on Me, you can walk along perilous paths without being afraid.  Eventually, you will learn to relax and enjoy the adventure of our journey together. As long as you stay close to Me, My sovereign Presence protects you wherever you go. 

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. plus some.

“…I realized that for years I’d thought of love as something that would complete me, make all my troubles go away.  I worshipped at the alter of romantic completion.  And it had cost me, plenty of times.  And it had cost most of the girls I dated too, because I wanted them to be something they couldn’t be.  It’s too much pressure to put on a person.  I think that’s why so many couples fight, because they want their partners to validate them and affirm them, and if they don’t get that, they feel as though they’re going to die.  And so they lash out.  But it’s a terrible thing to wake up and realize the person you just finished crucifying wasn’t Jesus. 

[Susan was asked] whether she believe there was one true love for every person.  She essentially said no…

…She said she had married a guy, and he was just a guy.  He wasn’t going to make all her problems go away, because he was just a guy.  And that freed her to really love him as a guy, not as an ultimate problem solver. And because her husband believed she was just a girl, he was free to really love her too.  Neither needed the other to make everything okay.  They were simply content to have good company through life’s conflicts.  I thought that was beautiful.

When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are. And when you stop expecting God to end all your troubles, you’d be surprised how much you like spending time with God.”

A few days ago somebody asked me if I’d written recently. My response was no, and they asked why not - they always thought I had something good to share. 

So here’s to finding out. 

Relationships are funny.  You want one. You get one. You argue. You laugh. You challenge each other. You’re different. It works. You fall in love. You freak out. You break up. 

Society tells you by a certain age you should be at a certain point in life or doing a certain thing… but when you’re not, you wonder what’s wrong with you.  

But there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re you. And you don’t have the same timeline or passions or priorities or heart as anyone else. 

What matters is that you’re moving forward each day.  Becoming a little more educated, a little stronger, a little more fully you than you were yesterday.  

Miller brings up a good point above.  

For the most part, we look to others or to God to solve our problems, to give us answers.  We want quick fixes and immediate responses.  But that’s probably not what we’re going to get.  

“If I just had ___.” “If only I were ___.” “If ___ were here.”

We can play “What if” games for the rest of our lives or wait for someone else to fix our problems, but what good is that really going to do? 

We have to make choices that our going to keep us progressing so we can learn how to love God and love others well.  

Love them, enjoy them, live life with them each day a new.  

It’s hard. Living in life-giving relationships is hard.  Being honest with yourself, with God, and with each other.  But that’s what life is really about, isn’t it? Pushing one another forward.  Helping them become more them and letting them help us be more us.  

And then maybe one day you’ll find that guy who compliments your passion and heart. The kind Susan talks about. The one that wasn’t going to make all her problems go away, because he was just a guy.  And that freed her to really love him as a guy, not as an ultimate problem solver.

This selfless kind of love that grows into the best kind of love - a silly love. At least that’s my opinion. 

Be blessed. Be vulnerable. Be loved. 

fear.

And the Lord is now calling me for a second time, affirming me, enabling me, encouraging me, challenging me all the way into fullness faith, hope, and love in the power of His Holy Spirit.  Ignorant, weak, sinful person that I am, with easy rationalizations for my sinful behavior, I am being told anew in the unmistakable language of love, “I am with you, I am for you, I am in you.  I expect for failure from you than you expect from yourself”.

There is one barrier to love that deserves special mention because it is so crucial to the second call of Jesus Christ - fear.  Most of us spend considerable time putting off the things we should be doing or we would like to do or we want to do - but are afraid to do.  

We are afraid of failure. 

We don’t like it, we shun it, we avoid it because of our inordinate desire to be thought we of by others.  So we come up with a thousand brilliant excuses for doing nothing. We put things off, waste energies of life and love that are within us…

…Each of us pays a heavy price for fear of falling flat on our face.  It assures the progressive narrowing of our personalities and prevents exploration and experimentation.  As we get older we do only the things we do well.  There is no growth in Christ Jesus without some difficulty and fumbling. 

The fact that love does not operate according to the rules of power may help explain why God sometimes seems shy to use his power.  He created us to love him, but his most impressive displays of miracle - the kind we may secretly long for - do nothing to foster that love.  

Gouglas Hall puts it, “God’s problem is not that God is not able to do certain things.  God’s problem is that God loves.  Love complicates the life of God as it complicates every life. “