Love at the Foot of the Cross

I said a while back that I would talk more about love. So here it is.

The perfect definition of love is found in 1 Corinthians 13, and it goes like this:

“Love is patient,

Love is kind.

It does not envy,

It does not boast,

It is not proud.

It does not dishonor others,

It is not self-seeking,

It is not easily angered,

It keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil

But rejoices with the truth.

It always protects,

Always trusts,

Always hopes,

Always perseveres.

Love never fails.”

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Wow. What a list. Sometimes I think to myself, “How many of these characteristics of love do I exhibit to others? How do I measure up on the Jesus scale?”

I know that I am much more patient than I was in my younger years. But I still have a long ways to go. Besides, have you ever noticed that sometimes you are more patient with friends and acquaintances than you are with your own family members? I know I am. Patience has never been my strong suit, and my patience gets tested quite often and I fail more often than not with my  husband, especially now that we live in extremely close quarters. (We live in a 32 foot motorhome with our two dogs, Tinker Belle the Pug and Gracie the standard poodle puppy.)

I try to be as kind as possible, in my dealings with others. However, this, too, can be a struggling point when my mouth speaks before my brain thinks it through--especially when I am tired or in pain. I have to keep telling myself that unkind words will not help the situation, neither will my habit of “needing” to have the last word on a subject. The Holy Spirit has been working on me lately concerning fewer words being better.

“Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.”

Ecclesiastes 5:2

(Personal addendum, based on Psalm 139: Everything is uttered before God because he hears all and knows all, even before we speak it or do it.)

Envy. I have mostly conquered envy, but there are still times when I get jealous or covet something someone else owns.

And, yes, I do catch myself boasting from time to time, but I rationalize it, thinking that it might benefit so-and-so if they heard about my personal victory. It is not necessarily bad to tell about our victories, so long as we give the glory to God, because if He did not equip us and provide for us, we would not have the victories to boast about. Our victories come through His blessings.

“But, ‘Let the one who boasts boast in The Lord.’ for it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom The Lord commends.”

2 Corinthians 10:17-18

What exactly is pride? When I typed “define pride” into the Bing search engine, the second definition that it showed was “proper sense of own value.”

 Wow. So, according to the world (as pointed out by the above), we are supposed to be prideful? I understand that we should feel good about ourselves and that we need to have a sense of personal respect, but seriously? Pride is the proper sense of our own value? I think not, and I base my belief on the teachings of Jesus. Humility is what our personal value needs to be based on. Jesus washed people’s feet. He did not let His status as the king, as God incarnate, interfere with what He came to this earth to accomplish. To be a servant is more important than any other thing we might have to be prideful about. John 13 states it best.

“Jesus knew that The Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.”

John 13:3-5

Today’s world is so full of pride and arrogance, that the world tends to disparage those who do not conform to the worldly ways of “me-me-me” and winning no matter the cost, calling us “nonconformists” weak and stupid. The world idolizes movie stars and professional sports figures. No wonder they are so arrogant, being held to that level by their fans.

Alas, even with my disdain for pride, I occasionally fall prey to its evil draw. I am only human, after all.

“Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. Better to be lowly in spirit along with the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud.”

Proverbs 16:18-19

How am I doing so far? It doesn’t look too promising for me to ever achieve God’s definition of love; however, God knows this about all of us humans.

My point in showing how I fail at some of these love traits is not to disparage myself. I show my faults to demonstrate that having faults in these areas is nothing to beat yourself up about. So long as we are working faithfully on our weaknesses, God will be pleased with us. God knows we are human and that as humans, we have a tendency to be self-centered and that we have a sinful nature.

God delights in us when we take our faults and our failures to Him. When we take our pride and our ego and we place them at the foot of the cross, He will help us bear our burdens and wipe away our shame.

He loves us that much.

My final words on love comes again from 1 Corinthians 13:

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

1 Corinthians 13:13

My prayer for you today is that you would know love in your life, the deep, abiding love only found in relationship with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

In His grace,

Jennifer Joy

Be True

We just completed a week in exile, as I have chosen to call our recent adventure into dry camping. Luckily I had the foresight to set up over a weeks’ worth of posts ahead of time, so this is actually the first post I have written since before Thanksgiving.

Dry camping, or boon docking, is when you have all the luxuries of home in your motorhome or trailer, yet you have no power, water, or sewer hookups; therefore, most of your “luxuries” are rendered useless, unless you have the added luxury of solar panels and a large bank of batteries, which we do not. We had plenty of propane to heat and cook with, but we had to ration water, not having a ready supply at our fingertips. We also did not have adequate lighting, as sunset is quite early this time of year, and our house batteries aren’t what they used to be. Needless to say, we spent most evenings by candlelight.

I had hoped that exile would be a growing experience for me. I had hoped that God would use that special time, disconnected from the rest of the world, to teach me something important.

Instead, I spent most of the dark hours grousing because I did not have adequate light and I could not use my computer. I could not even read without my eyes hurting. So I grumbled through most of the week, and I teetered on the edge of anger because I could not do the things I wanted to do. Writing by candlelight is not any easier than reading by candlelight, and crocheting a new pattern is all but impossible in the dark. I kept making mistakes and I had to tear out my stitches more than once, before giving up. There wasn’t much we could do while in exile.

My self-inflicted problems were many last week, as I did not learn what exile (in The Bible) teaches. I not only complained during the night, but I also spent my daylight hours complaining about the darkness. It knocked on my door all too soon, every afternoon, and I dreaded its inevitable approach. I let this negativity eat away at me. By fearing and fretting, I allowed the darkness to steal my joy. So my exile did not turn out how I had hoped, but maybe I did learn something after all.

Biblically speaking, God would send His people into exile when they were sinning to extremes and needed a wakeup call. Moses led the Israelites through the desert for forty years, in exile, because the Israelites were so thick-skulled that they could not help but keep sinning, every time their leader, Moses, turned his back for just a moment. Even in Solomon’s day, God was still using exile as a teaching method.

“But if you or your sons turn away from me and do not observe the commands and decrees I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land I have given them and reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name.” 1 Kings 9:6-7

God does not hold the reigns too tightly. He allows us our free will. However, sometimes our antics could cause real damage, and it is at those times when the Holy Spirit whispers softly to us. Just as my husband rescued Gracie from an imminent broken leg, Our Savior can rescue us. All he asks is that we come to Him and ask for His help.

Maybe what I learned is that we must simply let go, of all the little things as well as the big things. I took my exile and saw only the negatives, when I should have been looking for the joy in having a week to spend with my husband, my dogs, and ultimately with my God. Lately,  I’ve gotten rather skilled at turning over one big thing after another to God, allowing Him to take the reigns of my larger problems, but sometimes I forget that I must also turn over every little thing, if I expect to keep my joy. The correct path to follow would have been to use my week in exile to its fullest potential. If I could not see to read The Bible, then I should have at least been praying for enlightenment of my heart and soul.

Maybe what I learned is also that I am who I am, and I have to be true to myself, if I am going to be true to God. I’m no better than the thick-skulled Israelites because I could not see past my own frustrations, to what He was trying to teach me, anymore than they could all those millennia ago. I may backslide into anger or bad habits once in a while, but I cannot hide who I truly am inside.

Just as Gracie could not stop herself from having so much fun in the loose dirt, despite how dirty she became in the process, I cannot help being human, and as such, I cannot help making mistakes.

I can mask myself with primping and crooning, but I am still a sinner underneath. I still get angry. I still allow my anger to get the better of me. I still allow my frustration to fester into melancholia.

And I will always need my Savior to rescue me, time and again.

What I am trying to say is that kids will be kids, dogs will be dogs, and we will all show our humanness, like it or not. No matter how hard I strive to put my past behind me, sometimes I find myself once again in the thick of it.

It is at that precise moment, when I feel the weight of my dirt and my sins upon me, when I must make the conscious decision to ask forgiveness and to let the dust settle again, so that I can humbly get back on track. Back to my relationship with God.

No, we did not punish Gracie for being herself. We enjoyed her antics immensely. She is only a dog and does not care whether she gets dirty or not. She does not know that a bright, shiny white coat is preferable to a dingy, dirty coat.

Likewise, it does not matter how dirty I get in the process of my sinning, Jesus will always welcome me back with open arms. His blood will wash the dirt from my snowy white garments (made snowy white in the first place only by His loving sacrifice), and He will gently lead me to a more fulfilling path.

That’s why Our Savior came—to rescue us and protect us from ourselves, as well as from the devil.

Our humanness will trip us more often than not, if we allow it, and Our Savior will pick us back up every time, if we only ask.

My prayer for you today is that you might recognize your humanness as a good thing. We were made in the image of God, yet we were given free will because He loved us enough to let us be unique.

In His grace,

Jennifer Joy

Ouch!

I had another dream. God seems to talk to me through my dreams, and when I awake, oftentimes confused or frustrated by my dream, He patiently takes the time to try to explain it to me, usually through scripture. For The Bible is a living thing. If we listen, we can hear The Word breathe truth into our lives.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1

In my dream the other night, I had a horrible toothache. My molar was aching terribly. Then The Lord touched my tooth, and the pain was instantly gone. I awoke confused, as usual. And as usual, I have learned to ask God for clarification. Still in a half sleep state, He spoke directly to me this time, instead of through scripture. He said that my toothache represented an unresolved sin in my life. He asked me if I knew which sin might be causing me such grief, for the mouth is the conduit through which our heart speaks. I acknowledged my sin, and when He touched my tooth, the pain disappeared, and I was forgiven.

“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” Luke 6:45

The sin I acknowledged was that I have been ridiculing myself for years for being a horrible parent. I have been holding that sin, that pain in my heart because of my past depression and because I was never really there for my children, especially my daughter when she needed me most, because of my depression.

Our Benevolent Father forgave me of that sin and has given me the blessing of having my daughter in my life once again.

I thought I had lost her, because though I tried, I could not keep her in my life, and she ran away from everyone and everything she knew when she was twenty-three.

Now we are two years later, and our relationship has blossomed into something so beautiful. It took me coming all the way to Beaumont to find her and to start fresh. (To clarify, I found out she was in Beaumont after six months of not knowing anything, but I did not know how much her life had changed for the good.)

After she came to Beaumont, The Lord must have moved mountains in her life, for she is now an entirely different person than she was in Vancouver, Washington. I can see a light shining in her as never before, and I am humbly grateful for having been given this gift I felt I did not deserve.

My prayer for you today is that you can find peace about your past sins, especially where your most important relationships are concerned.

In His Loving Embrace,

Jennifer Joy