In Love

In the early morning in that in-between-time right before fully awake, I hear the familiar whisper of my heavenly father speaking…

“Turn around you’re looking the wrong way…I’m trying to give you the promised land, but you are still living in the desert…and you keep looking back to Egypt! There is nothing for you back there. It is a fantasy. It no longer exists…”

Ouch…

Oh, Abba how well you see and know me.

Throughout my life I’ve longed for the fairy tale…the home with the white-picket-fence where loved ones gather for family dinners and birthdays and just day-days…to be together. Laugh, cry, go through all the life-things, together. But I never achieved the fairy-tale, because it doesn’t exist. The prince and the princess with a life of happily-ever-after. TV families like; Leave it to Beaver, My three sons, the Walton’s, to name a few…that’s Hollywood feel-good, make-believe-stuff…where in TV land, everything has a happy ending. At least back then it did.

Reality is a hard taskmaster…but in all of life’s struggles there are moments where life is good…it’s joyful and we find moments of contentment…My mom would say, “Life never runs smooth.”

What I’ve come to learn over the sixty-nine years I’ve lived this life, is that we are all still just little kids trying to figure it all out. With experience, comes wisdom, at least it should. I suppose some never learn the lesson.

I was young once believe it or not…I had silly little dreams but as life unfolded, I didn’t have the how to, to accomplish, and looking back at now would have been completely different. Age gives you a certain perspective you don’t have when you are young. “Hindsight is 20/20 they say.” Whoever they are.

I’m not complaining though, because even with the “stupid” mistakes (unwise choices) I made they brought me to this amazing time in my life where I’ve made life-long friends, great memories. I’ve learned to leave the bad memories buried and forgiven. That’s what Papa God told me one time. “Stop digging up dead things!” It’s a process.

But I find myself, if I’m not alert to it, I dwell in the desert and try to figure out why things are the way they are. Dumb I know. Thus, the Spirit of Papa God, telling me to stop it.

I think about many things, and that may be part of my challenge…but that’s me, a thinker of deep things…I guess that is the artist in me…to create…but sometimes those creations are not for the better…thank goodness for Holy Spirit…he tells us to think on good things, praiseworthy things.

This is who I am. I was once someone else, but Jesus changed all of that. I continue to be transformed into His likeness day by day, moment by moment, and for that I am grateful.

I am saying all of this to tell you…Do not look back! There’s nothing there for you. Live in the present! Live in His presence because in Him you’ll have the Promised Land…where milk and honey flow continuously. But if we look back, if we listen to the evil one, he will trap us in a place of despondency, regret, unhappiness, defeat, unforgiveness and death.

Turn around, live in the now!

You may ask, “But how do you do it?”

Have you ever been in love? That euphoric feeling of all you think about, all you care about, all you talk about, and all you want is to be with that person. Well, it’s kind of like that.

Fall so in love with Jesus that he is all that matters. When you do that, your heart is made new and all you want to do is love. Read His love letters. Get to know him better and better. Learn of him, see how he acted, what he’d say, what he’d do and follow His example.

Hate is an extremely damaging emotion. It doesn’t just kill the spirit of the person you hate; it kills you. Just like eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil it kills you spiritually and damages your whole life. When Steven, one of the early disciples was being stoned to death, he said, “Forgive them father for they don’t know what they are doing.” He followed Jesus’ example. Jesus stood up…if Steven had not prayed, forgive them…Oh my! (Someone gave me this insight the other day.) (Todd)

When Jesus was dying on the cross, He said, “Forgive them father, they don’t know what they are doing.” Had he not prayed that prayer, this is just a personal thought, God would have destroyed mankind right then, for what they were doing to his son, it hurt him to the depths of his soul that he had to turn his head…but Jesus loved us so much, he gave up His life for us. You and me and for all generations to come. All he asks is that we ask him too, he doesn’t force anyone.

A very good friend of mine (Amye Still) says this, “Hurting people, hurt people. Freed people, free people!”

Simply ask Jesus to come into your life, your heart, and show you how to love him. I promise you he will Love you right back…

Jesus loves you so, so much…when you love him, it makes you love everyone even your worst enemies…even those who hurt you, abused you, abandoned, betrayed you, crushed you. But with the love Jesus gives you, you can forgive. Not that you continue in those relationships. Sometimes you have to love people from a distance. You will be freed!

~Marla Shaw O’Neill November 27 & 28, 2023

1 Corinthians 13 New Living Translation

Love Is the Greatest

13 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. ³ If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about ^{it; [a]} but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

⁴ Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud ⁵ or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. ⁶ It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. ⁷ Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

⁸ Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages^[b] and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! ⁹ Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! ¹⁰ But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.

¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. ¹² Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect ^{clarity. [c]} All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

¹³ Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

Footnotes

1. 13:3 Some manuscripts read sacrificed my body to be burned.

2. 13:8 Or in tongues.