From the heart

As I was taking a shower yesterday, I felt God laying the need to encourage others on my heart. God seems to lay many things on me while I'm in the shower. It's hard to fathom that your bathroom could be considered 'holy ground'. I think that I hear God more there than at any other time, perhaps, because it's relatively quiet there outside of the children banging on the door trying to ask me questions that I simply cannot hear and find myself yelling at the top of my lungs in answer to their attempted questions. Even in all of that, I am able to hear that quiet whisper fluttering across my heart.

I am noticing that is how God is. He comes to us quietly and simply but the words we hear are bold, strong and compassionate. I've been praying that I would have eyes to see and ears to hear and I believe that God is answering that prayer. If I wouldn't have had this very thing, I would have missed so much of what He has been trying to teach me and show me.

I have seen God's hand at work in my own life lately that it brings me to tears. There have been a few days when all I've wanted to do was to curl up in a ball and then I will have a friend call with the compassion of Christ that gives me the strength and courage to go the next step. That is God's love for us. He loves us so much. I know you can say, yeah, yeah, God loves me but it goes so much deeper than that.

For a long time, my fear of God dominated God's love. I just didn't understand it and was waiting for God to knock me down the minute I made a mistake but that is not how God is. That was my 'religion' doing that not God. You can't tell someone about God's love if you haven't an understanding of it. It's like saying you are a believer but never putting that into action. People look at believers and if they see your faith in action, can see the hand of God.

It's so important for us brothers and sisters in Christ to help those along the way that are in need. One of the saddest events that breaks my heart is to hear of a believer that has given up the fight. I was reading the book of Job one day and I felt God asking me a question. That question was this. "If everything was striped from me, my car, my home, my finances, whatever was important to me....would I still love Him?" Of course my initial response was..yes! But then I had to stop and consider that. It is agonizing to lose the things that we think important and our thoughts are suddenly flooded with the idea that God doesn't love us anymore. How wrong that is! God wants us to place him first and to know that no matter what situation we are in, that we will still honor and praise Him and remain faithful to Him.

I've really been challenged lately to be looking for ways I can show my 'love walk.' I haven't much but God has given me the gift of encouragement and I am trying to be faithful with that. God can turn it into something amazing if only we are obedient to what He has called us to do. I pray that my life will point to Christ and His faithfulness, that through my testimony, God will be glorified and that I will continue to gain an understanding of His compassion through which I pray to be a vessel for that love to reach the lost.