We’ll rest when we’re dead and gone but we’re not home. So much to do now, we work our fingers to the bone because love does. We were prisoners who got away but we cannot keep this freedom for ourselves. Running back now into danger making freedom out of every slave. There’s no question we ain’t living for ourselves our lives are not ours anymore. We’ve been given a higher calling, let the old die so that the new can be born. We’ll rest when we’re dead and gone but we’re not home. So much to do now, we work our fingers to the bone because LOVE DOES.
I made a decision around November of last year. It was a strange decision for me, honestly, I questioned it for quite awhile. Seeing flaws with it and being quite afraid of what might come about as a result. But I think curiosity got the best of me, that and the nagging feeling that God wanted something out of it. As much as I would love to say “I totally felt God calling me to this.” that wasn’t the case. Ashamedly, it wasn’t the case because I was having a difficult time hearing Him due to one simple fact. I had deemed myself too busy to spend any real time in His presence. It was as if I had shoved cotton balls in my ears and trudged forward to what I “had to do” and couldn’t hear anything other than my own heart beat. But my God is a God of patience, gentleness and well, let’s be honest, the ability to be as subtle as a lightening bolt and rumbling thunder.
The lyrics at the beginning of this post of from a recent Warren Barfield song called Love Does. When I first heard it, it spoke to me but in a strange way. My first thought was of a book that is out right now that have many many people fumbling all over themselves with excitement as to what it means for their lives. I read the book, eager to see what it was that had everyone so excited. I was about a quarter of the way into the book when I heard the song Love Does and I thought “how cool, this could easily be a theme song of sorts for this book” and I continued reading. I’m probably going to ruffle some feathers here but that’s okay. I little further into the book, I found that I didn’t agree with what the author was saying. At first glance I thought that everything sounded great and made sense Biblically, but the more declarative the author became the more I kept hearing something within me screaming. I understood what the author meant by his declaring that love get’s out and does. But what I felt deep inside of me was a lack of truth attached to that statement. There are things in scripture I felt the author was forgetting. We are called to be stewards, we are called to be wise, we are called to judge {yes, in this “accept everyone and everything” sort of world we’re in today, we are in fact called to judge} and we are called to hard truths, to things that are difficult to do, to things that are a real struggle and go against the grain of what we feel. As much as I was wanting to throw everything to the wind and just DO, I couldn’t put aside the things in scripture that cause us to stop and wait on Him, to listen for Him, to let HIM do through us. We are called to love – I will never discount that but love isn’t just a fluffy fuzzy happy feeling, it can be hard, it can can be difficult. And without knowing what the Creator of love wants of us, what His word calls us to do, we can go around “loving” people all day long and never find ourselves doing what it is that the One True Love does. So, as I’m still under the shadow of 2013, I’m boldly stepping into 2014 with this decision: I am not making goals for this year. I am not going to “do” this year but let Love with a capital L do.
If you know me well, your jaw should be on the floor. I’m a goal maker, a planner, a dreamer, a pusher. I push myself to where I think I should be, towards what I think I want, to the person that I think God wants me to be. But 2013 was full of me doing, but it was full of me doing on my own. It was a year of me “taking charge” of my life and successfully deafening myself ignoring the pull of my Savior asking me to give Him the reigns. Oh sure, I felt like I was doing things that were “approved” by Him, but I never really gave Him an opportunity to direct me. But bringing my plans to the Lord and saying “here’s my plan, here are my goals” resulted in a year that was fairly quiet from the One that I long so desperately to hear. And while I accomplished quiet a bit this year, it isn’t living if you’re just spending your life staring at a goal list with your ears clogged to hearing the truth of His words.
I will rest in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ but I will not rest until I have found more of who He is. I will work – hard, but I will first strive after Him so that the things I do are for HIM and not for me. I will be quiet to hear Him but I will not keep quiet about the life, the truth, the conviction, the hope found in His MIGHTY Word. I will not cling to goals or to plans aside from the goal of Love. To love my Heavenly Father with all I have, to find more about His love and how to show it to those around me.
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