Love's Challenge

I thought it would be a good way to start the new year by sharing this challenge that I was recently given.  So much of us being able to walk in daily success in all areas of our lives, is highly dependent on trusting the Lord and not leaning on our own understanding.  But, in order for us to trust Him, we need to not only focus on trust, but on understanding how much He loves us.  He knows our name; He has good things planned for us and wants us to walk in the reality of that.  If you have a deficit where God’s love for you is concerned, then you will fear having to trust Him.  

So, the challenge that was given me was to ask the Lord daily to show me how much He loves me.  I used to casually do this in the past.  I love the quirky bird that we know as the Cape Robin.  He is quick but oh so beautiful.  He would visit me by sitting on the wall outside my window even if it was just a brief moment every day.  Sometimes I would catch him sitting there looking at me and when I noticed him, he would disappear.  Every time I saw him, I would take a moment and remember that the Lord loves me.  

This challenge was no different, so I asked the Lord to show me how much He loved me.  The first morning, right after I asked this, I received a text message from my neighbour telling me that my porch light was still burning.  This was early morning so initially I got all irritated and didn’t connect the dots.  I thought that I will now have to drop what I am doing and go switch off the light.  But then I realized that my neighbour has been living across from us for more than 20 years and this has never happened.  He never even noticed our porch light.  The Lord then told me that it was Him showing how much He loved me by getting my neighbour to make sure my mom and I were ok because our light was still on.  

Since then, other things started happening, big and smaller as I started focusing and believing that He will show me things.  From blue flowers in the garden outside my window, to someone making me a special meal.  All this as the Lord is showing off His love for me. 

So I hear the sceptics say: “Oh that is nothing but mere coincidence”.  If you are doubting that the Lord can show His love in these ways, then there is a more sure way.  This challenge can also include asking the Lord not only to show you how much He loves you through birdies and flowers and caring neighbours, but also through scripture.  The Bible is packed with scriptures on His love for us.  But we have to read by faith, making it personal.

If humanity was born and raised in a dumpster, not knowing that there was an outside world, then we would be happy there.  We would find the nice corners and avoid the not so nice stinky spots.  We would not long for anything better or brighter and we would be content with knowing that you get born here, you live out your days - the end.  That actually was us being born after the fall of man into this sinful world with no way of escape.  We didn’t know that we needed a saviour.  God could very easily have forgotten all about our little planet with its inhabitants.  He could have crumpled up our existence and tossed it into the bin and started over, but He didn’t.  Instead, He began to create a love story with us by starting to speak about the coming saviour - a perfect one - that would take the sins of the world.  To come after us and to save us was God’s idea.  He did it because He loved us, and He wanted a future with us.

John 3:16 NLT - “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Jesus going to the cross to die for our sins - past, present and future - was a onetime thing but it is like the gift that keeps on giving.  He went to the cross then, but the benefits that He purchased for us will last beyond this world.  Dare to believe today that He has more for you, that He wants you to live in victory and that He has already planned great abundance for you..

I heard someone saying that whenever she saw a shooting star, she would marvel at the fact that God loved her.  Then one day she was walking on their farm with her younger sister.  It was a clear night and there was a shooting star.  She told her sister that it reminds her that God loves her, to which the sister replied that she wasn’t that convinced that God loved her.  The older sister gave her the challenge to just ask God to show her.  The next moment they were surrounded by a multitude of colors as a meteorite came past and lit up the night sky.  Nothing like seeing God’s love on display like that.

I want to challenge you. Are you going to ask the Lord to show you how much He loves you and then trust that He will?  What do you have to lose?  Let Him show you through physical things but also in scripture.  If you find verses, put a little heart next to it and see how the hearts start to fill up the pages.

All you need to do is ask Him!

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