Love

I've been unable to sleep well for a couple weeks. The feeling of knots in my stomach, the shaking inside that I feel, and the tears I have cried are almost a normal, natural feeling at this point. 

The "why" behind my sleepless nights shouldn't matter. I know many of us have had similar situations, I am not unique, but this dark path, that once started, feels hopeless, all encompassing, and heavy. 

It's easy to feel alone, unworthy, disliked, a complete failure, unwanted, despised, scorned, and dejected.

And that's just the first 20 seconds.

The couple of situations I find myself in have no way out for me. They are situations that others have built around me and I am not the one allowed to tear down the walls that have been built up. Basically, there is nothing I can do. 

At least aggressively; one on one with the parties involved.

My faith is being tested. It wasn't until this very moment that I realized this truth. My. Faith. Is. Being. Tested. Do I trust God to handle the hearts of others? 

Wow

Well, that changes everything. 

In this quick lightning bolt of truth, my entire perspective has just changed. Do I trust God enough to soften the hearts of others? To handle situations that I want to step in and fix immediately? To right wrongs that have been done in order to bring peace in a "microwave" manner? 

Do I trust my God?

My load just lightened considerably. 

So what is left for me?

Love.

1 John 4:7-5:3aHolman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)

Knowing God through Love

Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way:God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and His love is perfected in us.

This is how we know that we remain in Him and He in us: He has given assurance to us from His Spirit. And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent His Son as the world’s Savior. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God. And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.

In this, love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, for we are as He is in this world. There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because He first loved us.

Keeping God’s Commands

If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen. And we have this command from Him: The one who loves God must also love his brother.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father also loves the one born of Him. This is how we know that we love God’s children when we love God and obey His commands. For this is what love for God is: to keep His commands.

John 13:34, the words of Jesus:

“I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another."

And what is love?

1 Corinthians 13- Paul is speaking to the church in Corinth here. I know that this passage is often read at weddings, but the original audience was a body of believers.

If I speak human or angelic languages
but do not have love,
I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
 If I have the gift of prophecy
and understand all mysteries
and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith
so that I can move mountains
but do not have love, I am nothing.
 And if I donate all my goods to feed the poor,
and if I give my body in order to boast
but do not have love, I gain nothing.
 Love is patient, love is kind.
Love does not envy,
is not boastful, is not conceited,
 does not act improperly,
is not selfish, is not provoked,
and does not keep a record of wrongs.
 Love finds no joy in unrighteousness
but rejoices in the truth.
 It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.

 Love never ends.
But as for prophecies,
they will come to an end;
as for languages, they will cease;
as for knowledge, it will come to an end.
 For we know in part,
and we prophesy in part.
 But when the perfect comes,
the partial will come to an end.
 When I was a child,
I spoke like a child,
I thought like a child,
I reasoned like a child.
When I became a man,
I put aside childish things.
 For now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror,
but then face to face.
Now I know in part,
but then I will know fully,
as I am fully known.
 Now these three remain:
faith, hope, and love.
But the greatest of these is love.

For me, I have:

Faith- that my God knows all things, sees all things, and hears all things. 

Hope- true Biblical knowledge that God will make all things new and bring healing

Love- because God first loved me. 

I will not allow hate, bitterness, anger, darkness, hurt, fear, sorrow and worry control me because I have faith, hope, and love.

I choose this day to put those black things to rest. I cannot control others. I cannot control the emotions they allow to run their lives, but I CAN allow God to control mine.

THAT is what I choose this day, this hour, this minute, this breath.

Someone, please remind me of this tomorrow...