Quote
It is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less difficult to know that it has begun.
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Daddy & His Girl
The Love of God
The world does not bid you to sing, but God does. Song is the sign of an unburdened heart; then sing your songs of love unbidden, ever rising higher and higher into a fuller concept of the greatest, grandest fact on the stage of time – God is love.
But words and emotions pass, precious as their influence may be for the time, so when the duller moments come and the mind comes to require something more certain and sure to consider than the memory of mere emotions and stirring sentiments, consider this revelation – the eternal fact that God is love, not, God is loving. God and love are synonymous. Love is not an attribute of God, it is God; whatever God is, love is. If your concept of love does not agree with justice, judgment, purity and holiness, then your idea of love is wrong. It is not love you conceive of in your mind … .
-Oswald Chambers The Love of God, chp 1
Loving God – His gift and our response
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”
– Matthew 22:37
“Come, follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men”
-Matthew 4:19
The ideas of loving God, being a disciple, “serving” God, making disciples, and loving each other are intrinsically linked. You must love Christ to follow Him, and, if you truly love Him, you cannot help but point others to your Love.
If you love Him there will be nothing too great for Him to ask of you, nothing too far below or high above for you to attempt for His glory. Loving brings with it an intense desire to be with Him, even if it is at your expense, and to revel in His love.
Some people point to the Great Commission as the main thing Christians should be focused on, as the one thing they must do – I disagree. The way I see it, if you must focus on only one thing in your life, let it be the loving of the Saviour. Everything else in life will sort itself out if you place Him first.
The “second commandment” – Love your neighbor as yourself – naturally falls into place as you delight yourself in the Lord. Even if you were not inclined by nature to be merciful and tender, a knowledge of the heart of God compels you to at least show compassion. He knew each and every one us from before creation, every hair on our heads is numbered, and every single one of us was made to love. His heart calls to ours, ours, by His grace, respond, and out of this flows a holy love for those around us.
It must. “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8) and “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11) for who can truly love if they are apart from the only true Love of the world? And who can have Love in them and not let it show?
It is not an easy thing to love with abandon. Loving freely has been a continual struggle ever since Eden. There is a Being in this world who would like nothing better than for you to lose sight of the God who said, “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jer. 31:3). Satan cannot stand to see Christ glorified and adored, and though he cannot keep God from loving us, he can toss distractions in our paths. That is not to say that every time you miss the alarm in the morning and lose your designated quiet time, Satan has engineered it. But it is true that if we are distracted and busy we often fail to make time for the one thing of importance, loving and delighting in God.
President’s Day Weekend
Pictures, for all of you who have been suspecting that “something” was going on ……….
John came to visit! He flew in to CA (from IN – did you know that it is cold back there? who’d have thought … ) middle of Friday, and Dad and he finally arrived here at about 10:30pm (due to some delays with Dad’s flight schedule), just in time for a very late dinner.
It was wonderful to see John again, after about 8 months …….. a lot can happen in 8 months (yes, Abby, I know that that was an understatement).
Saturday was a quiet, fun, sun filled day. It started with a belated Valentine breakfast (waffles) and there was much giving and receiving of gifts. (no pics)
John gave me a great big, white teddy bear and a very large red mug with hearts on it. The mug holds about 16 oz of coffee … enough to get me through the morning!
After a while we decided to take a walk, original, I know. It was really more along the lines of “adventuring” ………
We hiked up the hill behind the house, got a bit sunburned, saw a glimpse of the Sierra Nevada through the haze, Ben ended up with blisters on his feet (he called them …….. oh, I can’t remember what he called them ………… but it was really funny), and we all had a great time. (once again, no pics)
Grandpa and Grandma came over for dinner, and Grandma let me know that she thinks John is a “very fine young man”. Well, so do I.
We ended the day by watching Facing the Giants, a movie that Daniel got for Christmas. (no pics)
Sunday started with church (of course). On our way home it started to rain. We spent the afternoon walking around Grant’s Grove (about an hour’s drive away), looking at giant Sequoias, playing in the snow and rain and goofing off.
We ended up wet and tired, and enjoyed a glorious sunset on the way down the mountain.
John is now on his way home, back to freezing Indiana. He is already missed – Ben is a bit forlorn that he no longer has anyone to show his new frog to. :-) However, Ben is not the only one who misses him …….. I do too!
Mom made a web-album of some of the pictures from this weekend:
Enjoy!
A Knight In Shining Armor and His Lady Fair
The Accolade, by Edmund Blair Leighton
night time kisses
Do not kiss your children so they will kiss you back but so they will kiss their children, and their children’s children.
– Noah benShea, Poet, philosopher and author of Jacob the Baker, Jacob’s Journey and Remember This My Children.
The way earthly parents treat each other and their children teaches their children how to view God, their heavenly Father. Older siblings (and I mean much older) have the same opportunity as their parents: do those who trust you see an unconditional, “I love you whether or not you deserve it, whether or not you want me to” kind of love? Do we kiss each other good night, even after a day that seems to have been filled with nothing but bickering? Or do we silently drift off, hoping that tomorrow will be better?
doin’ nuthin’
“I’d rather do nuthin’ with you than sumpin’ with anybody else.”
– beaver cleaver
leave it to beaver, episode “beaver gets lonely”
Three Sisters
~ ~ ~
The three of us spent a few hours together in our room this afternoon – and messed around with a camera!
I realized over again how precious it is to spend time with Anna and Julia, my sisters. Anna is truly my best friend, and Julia is climbing up the list. There is nothing in the world that can compare to the relationship sisters share.
Anna and I were busy studying all afternoon, and Julia walked in and out periodically. “Studying” probably isn’t really the right term, we actually just used it as an excuse to spend a few hours together (something we don’t get to do too often, as our school schedules are completely opposite)! I think Julia felt a bit left out – she would run in when she heard us laugh, wondering “what’s so funny? What are you doing? What are you two talking about?”. I love having her as a sister, but after ten – nearly eleven – years it is still an effort to include her in our spontaneous times of sistership. She wants to be part of everything, but there are some things Anna and I share that Julia cannot. And she feels it.
Nothing should be getting in the way of her feeling our love, nothing. It is imperative that we seek out her heart, together and individually. She is tender and priceless, and we must make time for her and include her.
After all, sisterhood is a gift from God. It is an incredible relationship that teaches us how to relate to other girls, other women, and the rest of the world. We can share things with each other that we can’t share with anyone else simply because they don’t share our history, they were not there to see us as we grew up (Anna knows more about me than anyone else, even Dad and Mom. There are a few things they know that she doesn’t, but she knows more). Friends have not seen us in our small failures and triumphs, all they see are the big things or the ones we allow them to see. Of all the people on earth, sisters know us for who we are, not for who they think we are.
Of course, sisters are also available to help us get out of trouble (and into it!). . . . :-D
A Special Evening ….. (?)
I can see it now: Jo(h)n – in his cuff links and bow tie – and Liz – in her evening gown and pearls – at Binky Burger. A little out of place perhaps, but special none the less. After all, isn’t that the kind of thing memories are made of? :-)