A Grace Note: Fueled by Love

Dear Reader, 

I’m dealing with what one of my friends recently described as a Job scenario. Currently, I’m dealing with a health situation which has required not one but two surgeries within the span of two weeks. I would have expected this seemingly unending series of troubles to unnerve me, or to shake up my faith in God, or to discourage me. But somehow, I’ve just felt peace among the pain and my mind has been focused on other things. I was pondering this morning how it is possible for us to love God when we go through periods of trial and suffering, how we are able to embrace the idea of strength in weakness. And yet, when it is other people who cause us to go through hard things, we have little grace for them. And I was convicted this morning in my thoughts, that the way we love God should set the precedence for the way we love His people. It is God who is the author of Love. To withhold love from the world then, is not to withhold something that belongs to us but rather something that belongs to God. Love isn’t ours to keep, it’s ours to share. The same goes for Life, Hope, Grace, Mercy, and Peace. To have true Life changing and Life giving community in this world, we must first have the solid base of personal communion with God himself in our own lives. You can’t share what you don’t have. You can’t give love if you haven’t first been filled with it. You can’t fight for peace if none is harbored within you. You can’t walk on the water if you don’t have the faith to step out of the boat. The world needs mountain movers, life givers, hope bearers, light bringers. But they all must be anchored in a power source which is able to provide all those things. That power source is the love of Christ. May we experience it deep in our souls and may it cover our lives that we might overflow with it and begin to pour it out into this world. May the Love of Christ overcome our bitterness, our fear, and our reluctance to go forth. Religion without roots is nothing, faith based on fear crumbles, and a church which refuses to physically move in the world is powerless. But the church of Christ does not stand motionless. Faith must become action, and it must be Love that fuels that faith.

In Him, 

A Fellow Grace Wanderer