Crazy to Love

The band Mercy Me, has a new album out that is prompting us to, 'love well.' That caught my ear. I quickly purchased the new release. One song, Crazy Enough, was my favorite:

Call me crazy but what if we learn to love our brother for nothing in return?

Oh how the rules would change

Reaching out to the ones who need help treating them as you first would treat yourself

Now that would be insane

(chorus)

It may just be crazy enough

to work if we could only love

what if we somehow changed the world?

It may be crazy enough

Be crazy today. Act as if your love really could make a difference in someone else's life,

or the world, or perhaps the world!

Looking for Love/Longing for Love

Hannah Hurnard in my classic book, Hinds' Feet on High Places, said "Happy it is to be able to love." (page 52)

Remind yourself today how happy it is to be able to love, to have the opportunity to love, to have the blessing of love. Happiness is a a by product of love. You don't love to be happy. You love and then you are happy. You are happy because you have given, received, or exchanged love.

Be happy!

Listening WITH Love

How do you listen?

I know sometimes I listen with distraction.

Sometimes I listen with frustration.

Sometimes I listen while formulating my answer or rebuttal.

Sometimes I pretend I'm listening.

Discipline yourself to actively listen with love, not with sympathy or criticism, but with ears that are attached to a heart of love.

Test yourself today to see if your ears are attached to your heart as well as your mind.

"The first duty of love is to listen." Paul Tillich

Listening FOR Love

Are you listening for the call of love in your life?

Are you listening to how you can better love those around you?

Do you hear the sounds of people's needs and pains?

Are your ears conditioned to be alert to the sounds of love?

If not, develop that today.

Listen for love. It's out there. Is it in you?

Listening TO Love

As you look at the Bible, it is full of examples of those who would not listen.

Nehemiah 9:17 says, "They refused to listen and failed to remember."

Proverbs is full of admonitions. [1:8, 5:7,13; 8:33; 13:1; 23:22]

Jeremiah 11:8 warns us: "The did not listen or pay attention; instead they followed the stubborness of their evil hearts."

As Gray says, "Listening is loving."

Today listen for love, it is calling as wisdom calls:

"Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares."

Are you listening?

Living Fully, Loving Deeply, Leading Well

Chris Dodd calls us live life in three dimensions: "living fully, loving deeply, and leading well - in that order." (page 100, The Perfect Loss)

Concentrate on living fully, loving deeply, and leading well.

If you do the first two, the last one will follow.

People will follow your lead.

Lead on, in fullness of life and depth of love.

The Gospel of Your Life

Chris Dodd explains how "we are being written line by line in the blood of life and spirit of love as far as we can read. God desires to complete the poem in full living, loving, and leading lines..."

[page 94, The Perfect Loss]

That's a great reminder of how our lives are the gospel (good news) that other people see and read. Let your gospel be written out in love. Let God's poetry (you) be lived out in bold lines of love and prose.

Love & Hurt

"I had harmed most who I loved most." That's how Chip Dodd describes his loving in "The Perfect Loss." [page 92, 92] How true that statement was. Why is it that we hurt most those we love the most? It's so true, it's so wrong! We hurt those more who we are committed to, who we live in covenantal relationship with. Lord, help this not be the case. Dodd went on to remind us of "the impossibility of love without hurt."

Lord, help us not hurt those we love.

Help us not hurt anyone!

Love growing cold?

As I read Matthew 24:12, it hit me: love grows cold due to wickedness.

Don't let any wickedness in your life throw cold water on your love.

I looked up wicked and found many meanings:

- morally bad in principle or practice

-committing unrighteous acts

-unpleasant or bad

-naughty or annoying

-offensive

-causing disgust

It comes from the same root as "witch."

Next time you feel your love "cooling off," ask yourself some personal questions.

Do not let what Jeremiah said be true of you: "But they did not listen or pay attention; they did not turn from their wickedness...(44:5)

How do you treat "them"

Do you see that "he" is His, that "she" is His?

Do you treat "them" like "they" are a child of the King?

Do you comprehend that the Almighty made them and loves them?

"What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man, that you care for him?

You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor."

[Psalm 8:4,5]

"I am fearfully and wonderfully made..." [Psalm 139:14]

Understanding who they are and who made them, changes everything.

First Love

I listened to a eulogy today. The preacher said something that struck me:

"Because he got his first love right, he was able to love all of us so well."

Getting your first love right is so important to all the other "loves" in your life.

Get the first one right, and the rest will follow.

Love is the Reward

Mark Nepo in his book "The Book of Awakening" explains how closely linked, if not one, the reward it is to the effort. In being human we are looking for reward, for whatever we do. But, life doesn't always seem to work that way. Nepo says, "The reward for loving is being the carrier of love." (page 16)

It is not in loving that we look for reward, or even reciprocation.

Loving alone is enough. It is the reward.

Live by Faith, Love with Faith

Romans 1:17 says, "...the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall live by faith."

Not only do we live by faith, but we also love by faith.

The act of love is an act of faith.

Faith extends you beyond what you know.

Love propels you beyond yourself.

It has no assurance.

The gift is in the giving.

Acceptance with Joy Leads to Love

"...you have been learning the lesson of acceptance-with-joy, which is the first letter in the alphabet of love."

Hannah Hurnard describes this in her tail, Hinds' Feet on High Places (page 111).

How true that learning to accept with joy all that we encounter each day would lead us to love.
How do you accept things? Sometimes with reluctance, sometimes with resentment, sometimes with anger? We always accept things that come our way with some kind of attitude. Watch what your attitude reveals to you today as you accept things.

I'm trying to make joy my partner with acceptance.

Love & Spending

What are you spending your time on?

What are you spending your money on?

What are you spending your emotions on?

Examine, and invest wisely.

This works with money.

This also works with life.

Spend your time, money, and emotions on something you love.

Integrity of Personhood & Relationship

If you want integrity of relationship, and you should, you should also desire personal integrity. For without personal integrity, you cannot sustain a relationship of integrity.

Watching people is one of my favorite things. As I watch I observe, what I believe are relationships of integrity. But I realize for a couple to have relationship of integrity, it takes two individuals living with personal integrity.

To have a loving relationship, you must be a person of personal as well as corporate integrity.

Capitalizing on Love

Today, capitalize on what is in front of you.

After all, it's the only one before you.

Make the most of what you are given, and even what you don't have.

Seek the highest form of return.

Capitalize on every opportunity to discover or express love.

Be careful how you live...making the most of every opportunity...

Ephesians 5:15,16

Loving Better Today than Yesterday

How are you loving your neighbor as yourself today?

The Good Samaritan story tells us how others have failed. (Luke 10:25-37)

How do you fail? Where do we leave our neighbor unloved, uncared for?

I continue to ask myself, how can I love better today than I did yesterday.

Consider who your neighbor is.

Ponder how you might love them better.

Love what's in front of you

"...the best chance to be whole is to love whatever gets in the way, until it ceases to be an obstacle." (page 13, Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening)

Or, as he says a page later: "Touch what is before you, giving your love a way out."

I don't know what's in front of you, or what you feel is an obstacle to you. But, I think Nepo's advice, to love what is in front of you, could change everything. Nothing touched by love ever stays the same. Either you or it will be changed by this force.

Let love find a way out - of you.

Love's Motivations

"Fear is not the best motivator toward obedience - love is!"

(David Wilkerson)

Are you held back by fear, or propelled by love?

If you are using fear as your motivator, you won't go as far or give as much, as with love.

Obedience from fear is intimidation.

Obedience for love is submission.

A Road to Love?

This was a road sign in Monaco. I found it so interesting. If only life were so easy.

If only there was a sign that said, "Love" and all you had to do was go that way. It told you where to turn, where to change your course. I have discovered life is not laid out like a map.

GPS will not lead you to love. But, follow your heart. Consider it's lead, even if only it wraps around hair pin turns like in Monaco. It's hard to keep your sense of direction with roads that turn at every angle. But, life seems a lot like that. You have to trust your heart and follow where it leads, even if there are no "signs."

Love as a Language

Living in America you can get used to knowing the language: English.

But traveling abroad, you don't know what they are saying.

Signs could be warning you, but it doesn't help. I thought of this as I drove and wondered what those signs were telling me.

Life is like that. Sometimes you understand people and other times you don't.

They can be talking right to you, even yelling, but you don't understand what they are saying.

It's a real handicap.

But universally, you can pick up their tone.

You instinctively pick up their attitude.

I've been snubbed in the South of France without a word, and warmed by a smile in Italy.

No words necessary.

Let the language you speak today, be one of love, whether with words or without.

Mother Teresa said it well: "You speak a language all men understand, the language of charity." (page 368, The Joy in Loving)

David Benner called it "the language of the soul." (page 11, Surrender to Love)

Losing It

After a cancelled flight, a delayed flight, a missed flight, and a too long layover, and 24 hours of no sleep - "I've lost my religion" as they say. Or "I've lost the love." Lost it, just like that.

What does it take for you to "lose it"?

Whatever it is, be on guard.

I know we shouldn't "lose it" so easily (?), we shouldn't lose it at all.

Be on guard, don't lose your cool, your religion, or your love.

It's all way more important than anything else.

Love as a Way of Life

It's a way of living.

It's a lifestyle.

It's a mindset.

It has to be your goal and method.

It must be your fuel and reward.

Love as a Cure

I heard Antonio Banderas say, "There is nothing in this world that love cannot cure."

It's amazing how truth can come out of anywhere at anytime.

What can you cure your world of today with love?

A Value Investor

Are you a "Value Investor"?

A value investor looks for value to invest in.

Today, look for value around you, and invest in them ~ with love.

A Message in a Pocket

Gray bought a new pair of pants and as we examined the inside of the pants for the washing label, we noticed this sewn on the inside pocket:

In the end

We will conserve only what we love

We will love only what we understand

We will understand only what we are taught

I've never seen such a message sewn inside a pocket of a piece of clothing.

But, in the end, we were touched...to love.

Afraid to Show Love?

"There is so much love in us all. We must not be afraid to show our love." Mother Teresa

(page 372, The Joy in Loving)

It's like Prego Sphaghetti Sauce, "it's in there." It's in us.

We should not be afraid to show our love.

Are you afraid to express it, or show it?

Either way, love withheld is love denied someone.

Don't deny yourself or them.

Show your love.

Thoughtfulness & Love

"Thoughtfulness comes when there is true love."

Mother Teresa (page 396, The Joy in Loving)

This is a thoughtfulness test: How thoughtful are you?

How much time do you spend being thoughtful of others?

How much effort do you put into doing thoughtful things for others?

Your thoughtfulness shows your true love.

Misusing Love

"Love can be misused for selfish motives. I love you but at the same time I want to take from you as much as I can, even the things that are not for me to take. Then there is no true love any more." (page 369, Mother Teresa, The Joy in Loving)

Love can be misused: Don't misuse it.

Don't abuse love or people - or it is no longer love.

That is not love, that is abuse.

Don't get confused if you are in an abusive relationship.

It is an abusive relationship, not a loving relationship.