I wrestle through the early morning with my devotions and prayers. I know today is the day I try to get a post done but am not inspired in the least. During my prayer time, I ask the Lord to inspire me, for I have nothing to say. I thought about imitating an eastern culture with a simple thought like, How does one know love? I could leave that alone on the page and perhaps thousands would come to the site and ponder it for days. Well, that was nowhere near clever or thought provoking enough. So that is a big, very big, no.
I went on to care for the cats, start the laundry and do my morning Yoga. Still nothing. I showered, dressed, and for a change even put gel in my hair to feel ready for whatever might come my way. Still nothing.
I folded a couple loads from the dryer and sat at my desk. I opened the website and went to the page ready to write. Still nothing. I stared and stared. I looked around my office hoping that inspiration was cleverly hidden like the Elf on the Shelf at Christmas time. Maybe if I looked hard enough, I would find that little trickster. No dice.
I scrolled through old blog postings, read the HIlton Head one several times making the cold and snow even more unpleasant. Nothing touched me. I picked up a devotional that sits on my desk by Max Lucado and flipped through his devotions looking to be inspired. Nothing there.
I listened closely, hoping for the buzz of the dryer telling me another load was ready to be folded. Silence. Aahhh.
I was ready to give up for the time being, I put the computer to sleep secretly wishing I could just push my nose and in a flash I would be peacefully napping too. As I stood, Max Lucado's book again got my attention. Actually the title was what intrigued me. His book is titled, "Live Loved." I flipped through the pages again and Max (as always) did a wonderful job giving us reasons to see our life as being loved.
I started to reflect on my innermost feelings. Perhaps I am not the only one that doesn't always live life "feeling" loved. We may be loved, but do we always recognize it? We may have great cause to say we live life loved but do we actually live that way?
I will step up first and admit that many times determining if I live loved depends on other people, circumstances, accomplishments, or self evaluations. I guess that at times when the Love Boat called "all aboard," I missed the departure time, getting to the dock just in time to watch it sail away.
I then asked myself, why is it at times I feel that I do not live loved? Well, maybe this comparison will help. If I want to live my day tapping my foot, whistling and wiggling in my chair, I turn the dial on the old radio to a nice country music station. If I want to spend my day with tears in my eyes, sobbing with my heart breaking, I stay on that country station because I know it will make me cry eventually! So if that is the kind of day I want, what happens if I tune in to a 24 hour extravaganza of heavy metal on a rock station? Clearly, I don't get what I want.
So, if I want to live life loved, I have to be open to it, I have to look at life in a way that I will see and hear love. I have to tune in to it.
If I am feeling sorry for myself because I am living in the land that sun forgot, I will not feel I am living loved because I am focused on my self imposed sad feeling. Now, where in those feelings am I going to feel loved? With it being March 22nd, less than a month from coming clean with Uncle Sam about our finances for 2012, if we are frantic about it, are we going to feel a life loved? You can fill in your particular scenario here; If I am walking around all _________________, will I feel I am living loved? NO.
We have to tune out the station that is not giving us what we want and dial into the one that does. The subtitle to the book by Max is, "Experiencing God's Presence in Everyday Life." Well, that focus is sure a good place to go. Max writes this book pointing out that we are loved (by God), with a steadfast love, a perfect love, a wise love and a merciful love. No matter how crumby life has been, no matter what we are dealing with, if we look to God and His love for us, we will feel we are living loved.
God's love for us is steadfast; firm, unwavering, stable, constant and immovable. God's love for us is perfect; free from faults or defects, complete, absolute, and ideal. God's love for us is wise; experienced, knowledgeable, prudent, sensible and discerning. God's love for us is merciful; compassionate, lenient, tender, and unwilling to punish.
If we are having a bummer of a day and feel we are living outside the touch of love, perhaps we are just not tuned into the right station. If we dial into problems, things of life, tough times, having to park too far from the mall or not getting enough sunshine and yet expect to feel we are living loved, then maybe we should tweak that old dial and tune into the Source of love, the Creator of love, the Perfecter of perfect love and the greatest love giver ever.
From personbal experience, if I immerse myself in God's love, I start to see that I am living loved in many ways. I see love all around me. The longer I stay tuned into His love, the more I see and feel love everywhere.
Max ends his book with his last section, wisely titled, "Loved to Love Others." Does that not perfectly match the theme of our website? Did you notice the sequence? Above, I listed descriptions of God's love for us. Those words were actually the section titles Max used. He set the book up in sections; Loved with a Steadfast Love, Loved with a Perfect Love, Loved with a Wise Love and Loved with a Merciful Love.
Max listed many of the types of love with which God loves us. Then he "finishes" with "Loved to Love Others." Remember, the scripture upon which this site and all the blogs are based upon is "We love because He first loved us." 1 John 4:19.
If we can live recognizing how many ways we are loved by the Almighty, then we cannot help but respond by loving those around us. When we love those around us we feel more love. The more we love, the more we feel loved because in the way we love others, we are pleasing the One who loves us all beyond what we can imagine.
Look, I admit that sometimes it is near impossible. Like when my skies are grey for weeks. I want to round up a posse, find the ornery critter who took my sunshine away (hmm could be a nice song) and lynch the rotten thief!
All I am saying is that when we are finding it hard to believe we are living loved: 1. turn to the Lord and scriptures to again realize how much He loves you. 2. Get past what is troubling you and love everyone around you. Suddenly, now that you have tuned into the right station, you will feel love all around. AND you might help someone else change the station they have been tuned in to - just because of how you are loving them.
Live Loved my friends, because you truly are!