Deuteronomy 30:20a "that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days;
This verse separates life from death. You can love God, obey His commandments, be His and let Him take care of you, or you can choose to go your own way, choose evil and die. There is just so long we can expect the Lord to wait, wanting so badly for us to draw near to Him, love Him and worship Him.
I can remember a time when I was hurt, so deeply hurt that I was determined not to let anyone hurt me again. I would be the one who did the hurting. Yes, you can read from that line that I was not walking in the Light of the Lord at that time. You cannot walk in God's light and have a heart that is so hardened. It doesn't matter what caused the hurt, it is in the past, but the hurt was so bad it caused me to close my heart off to love. I pretended to love, it was easy to do that, but underneath there was only determination not to be hurt again. Not to let my heart be penetrated by emotion. No one could have known what I felt, not truly. I could cry tears at command, smile and laugh as though I was having the best time, and all the time, I felt no emotion, nothing. I was not bitter, just hurt. My heart had finally surcome to the ultimate hurt and the only solution, close it off.
But God. God who knew me so well. Knew me as a child who loved so much, as I grew up, open heart filled with love for all. He knew my heart. He was just waiting until I had enough time to realize what He already knew, I needed Him. I had known my God as a child, eight years old giving Him my heart. Growing up in church, knowing the stories of His love and grace, always knowing He loved me. I need you to understand, God did not cause my hurt. My hurt was caused by the enemy who uses pain caused by others to infiltrate your mind, suggesting to you that you had this coming, you deserved to be hurt, and if you had not been so stupid in your choices this would not have happened. The enemy can make your spirit drop so low that you don't have the strength to pick up your head and reach up to the Lord. Yes, satan is so good at using your circumstances against you. How we need to keep our sword sharpened. But at this stage of my life, my sword had become quite dull. If you don't use it all the time, it will become dull.
I cannot remember what caused me at that time to reach out to my God. I am quite sure it was the fact that I had become so sick of myself, sick of my sin, so desiring to rid myself of all the weight that was so heavy on me, chains that had bound me up to where I could hardly look at myself in the mirror, despising what I had become. I am sure it was the undying love He had for me, and the His presence that would not leave me. Do you know you do not have to go through a ritual, no long, hard road trip, there is not a measure of time that you must spend in repentance before God will help you. All you have to do is call out to God, He will see your repentant heart, He will hear your cry of desperation, He knows the voice of His child. And I did, I lifted my eyes and called out to my Lord, I love you my God and He picked me up. He held me until I could feel my heart opening up, feeling love for the first time in so long. He loved on me while real tears fell from my eyes, great sobs releasing from me in a flood of tears that went on for a long time. Until I was cried out. The closer He held me, the more I held on to Him. And then it was done. All the chains were gone, the sin forgiven, the self hate was gone. There was love in my heart. Love for my God.
A lot of time as passed since my hardened heart was softened by the Lord. But there will never be a time that I forget what He did for me. What God did for this child so many years ago. How He took me, so ashamed of myself, restored that salvation I had walked in from youth and made me clean again. Cleansed with the blood of my Savior, refreshed in body and soul by pure love. The pure love of God that has no beginning and no ending, it was always there. Never leaving me before, even though I shut myself off, it was still there. And it has never left me since.
Loving God, oh yes, I will be loving God all my days. Not a moment goes by I do not love Him. You wonder about people that you see loving God with openness, with passion, with such adoration? Some may have always walked in His light, but for the majority of us, we knew what sin had done to us. We were God's children who for one circumstance or another, found ourselves dripping in sin, so far from the Lord as we could be; and He was waiting for us. Waiting for us to call out to Him, in our hunger for what we had before when we were walking with Him. And He restored us, the prodigals, to our rightful inheritance in Him. That is why we worship Him with our hearts, with our minds and our lips singing out songs of praise and worship to Him. That is why we tell whoever will listen of His great love, of His wonderful blessings on us. I am going to share His love with anyone I see hurting, anyone I see in pain.
I feel sometimes that I am interferring in peoples lives when I try to let them know God is wanting to help them, that I understand what they are going through. The enemy tries to tell me this all the time, but I cannot stop myself. I will, without hesitation, tell people I see in the sad, confused, miserable state I was in, of the great love and forgiveness of my Father. Of His wanting nothing more than to restore them to Himself. I will do it as long as my Lord gives me breath. And I will not apologize for it, He had called me to witness of His great Love and I will do so.
Loving God. It is what I do. It is what I want to do always. It is who I am.
My God, my beloved Father, my Lord that pours His love and blessings on me, I am your servant, your adoring servant, this 27th day of December, 2010.
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