Learning to Love God

The journey to heaven takes a person on an adventure. It wanders all over the spiritual countryside but takes us, with a certain amount of application, closer and closer to a better understanding and relationship with God.

Take me, for instance. For several years I have been on a road that focused on worship and I was looking specifically at God's throne room and how the throne room reflects His glory. Now, I can see the whole throne room of God in my imagination. God is so big, though, that I can't see very much at one time. I can see His Shekinah glory on his throne, so bright I can't see through it, with a rainbow over it like an emerald, but not at the same time I can see clouds of angels flying around it, singing, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!" If I look elsewhere, I see the four living creatures. In another place is the lampstand with the seven spirits of God. On the other side of the throne room are the twenty-four elders, praising God. There is smoke filling the throne room. But, I can't see all those things at the same time I hear the thunderings, see the lightnings, and feel the earthquakes. But,I don't dare enter. It is all too much for me. I am convinced. God is great!

But, recently, God was convicting me that I needed to focus on His love for me. Our Ladies' Bible Study is studying Blackaby's Experiencing God. In that book, in addition to two other books that He led me to (literally - as I was looking for another book in the dark in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep), Hearing God (Peter Lord) and A Hunger for God (John Piper), I heard over and over again that I cannot hear from God or get closer to Him if I am not in a love relationship with Him.

Now, I am a fix-it person. I am more than willing to hear from God what He wants to do and then go and do it. Unfortunately, that is very self-reliant rather than God-reliant. I also have been focusing for years on loving God. I know that loving God is exhibited in my loving people. But, I have not been paying attention to the other side of the relationship - God's love for me. What this leg of my journey has been revealing is that Jesus is His best way of showing how He loves me. But, even now, I can hardly accept His love for me. I can picture myself weeping at Jesus' feet. I can picture Jesus holding my hand as if I were a little child. I can picture Him touching me the way He touched lepers. But, I cannot picture His eyes. Once again, I don't dare. I envy those people in the Middle East who have had visions and dreams of Christ, so they can see His eyes. I can't imagine them and I don't dare to raise my eyes to see what they might look like. I am just seeing, me, a Christian of 40 years, that He loved me enough to die for me. It is so easy to say and so hard to understand. My head understands that He loved me enough to die for me, but my heart is just beginning to understand that this is the most important fact of my life. Not just that God is. Not that He hears our prayers. Not that He answers them. Not that He gives me power beyond what is humanly possible to become conformed to the image of Christ. But, that He loves me. That much.

God's Answer for Stress

We just had Ladies' Bible Study on Friday and, during prayer requests, the subject of stress and worry came up. Many of us agreed that the worst thing about worry is that we are coming up with all the things that might go wrong and, most of the time, they don't ever happen. But, we have gotten into the habit of thinking that way. And the only way out is to change our way of thinking.

The biggest way I stress out is getting to church. Getting everyone up and dressed and out of the house to be on time for church on Sunday has always been the most stressful part of my life. For others, it may be worrying about what people will think of them or what will happen to their children when they leave the house with their friends.

When I would get up on Sunday mornings, I would start praying Philippians 4:6-7 over and over the whole morning till we got to church: "Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God and the peace of God that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." I would meditate on that while noodging small people and husband to the van. And I learned that, while family didn't necessarily move faster, I was at peace.

Another important word from God on worry is Romans 12:2: "But, do not be conformed to this world but be transformed through the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." It's only by renewing our minds that we can live in the knowledge of how great God is and that even the bad things that happen to us can work out for God's and our good.