God is Love

I took a break for a few days in order to allow new followers to catch up. So I hope you new folks have had a chance to read the beginning entries and think about the project and start thinking about love. Have you started to put some things into practice? How is it going?

I am really excited to be writing again. I have been trying to be more loving through acts of service and going the extra mile. I have to admit that I haven't noticed a big difference in my life overall. I'm struggling with the extra mile and my attitude this week. I'm praying that God will make my heart more willing and my mind more perceptive to the needs of those around me.

Through this God has brought my attention to another area of my life that needs improvement. My reactions. They aren't always the most loving. You know, like that instant when my kids decide to disobey or challenge me. Or, this week, when my four year old decided his pants made a better potty than the actual toilet. Let's just say that it probably wasn't love my son felt from me when I discovered his choice of bathrooms. Especially on the third day of him making that particular bad choice. How do I correct this? I think the practical answer is to take a breath before speaking or reacting at all. And in that second, purposefully think about a more loving reaction. And sometimes loving means scolding a child for misbehavior. But my attitude and word choices do make a difference! Doing this is a way to listen to God and allow Him to change my heart and direct my actions.

That brings me to the next thought that has been on my heart this week. God is love. Scripture tells us this. To become more loving our focus has to be on God. There is no other way. To discover what love really means, we must get to know God. If we don't know God we cannot expect to ever know or understand the fruit of love. We must spend time with Him in prayer and through Scripture to get to know God more. He will walk beside us, directing us in becoming more loving.

This doesn't necessarily mean spending hours a day reading the Bible and praying. Most of us can't really swing that kind of time and I believe that God understands this. But we have a responsibility to use what time we do have to get to know Him more. Even if that is only a few minutes at a time. Let's make this a priority! And just watch what God will do!

The Extra Mile

I've been doing okay with my "change of focus" and practice to improve my serving attitude. How have you been doing? I admit I have messed up. I caught myself grumbling during laundry time (do I really have to be thankful and loving towards my husband's million white t-shirts that I have to fold??) and during diaper changes. But the good thing is that I caught myself! I count that as progress.

Anyway, I want to take this love practice a step further. I want to find ways to go the extra mile in serving my family. I've been trying to think of ways to do this and have been having a hard time coming up with a lot of examples, so it might be something I have to look for as I'm doing things and as I go about my daily life. One thing I thought of is to do tasks ordinarily done by my husband, like taking out the trash. This will be in service out of love for him. The key to this too is to do it with a loving attitude and without expectation of thanks or praise in return. The extra mile with my kids might include things like cutting their sandwiches into fun shapes that they like, or saying yes to that picnic in the living room that they like so much on cold winter days.

Try doing this with me! Let me know your ideas and how you do with your own practicing!

This Thing Called Love - Part 2

You may have noticed that I've been referring to I Corinthians 13 a lot. The love chapter, as it is called. The obvious and primary resource regarding love in the Bible. In fact, God was nice enough to define love for us. So, this should be easy, right??

According to I Corinthians 13:4-8a, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perserveres. Love never fails." And in verse 13b, "But the greatest of these is love." Okay, so maybe not so easy...

Love is the first, and arguably most important, fruit listed in Galatians. In I Corinthians, it is defined as "the greatest" quality. It can be overwhelming. In fact, as I started looking at this chapter preparing to write this entry, I began to wonder why I had ever even taken on this project! It seems like too much! But God would not have given us this task and told us to develop the fruits if we could not do it.

If you look at the definition of love in I Corinthians, you will notice that a lot of the other fruits are listed as a part of love. For that reason, I won't delve too deeply into each element of love's definition. We will be covering those later on when we get to those fruits. (I guess that means that, in effect, we will be working on love for the entire length of this project!) But I do want to start thinking about all of the fruits in light of love and this definition. Love as the end-game, as a sort of culmination of this project.

Let's take this love thing a little at a time. What are some ways we define love in practical terms? How do we show love or enact love in our daily lives? For today, I want to focus on acts of service. That is one way we can show love to others. By doing things for them, by becoming a servant. I think it falls under the "is not proud" or "is not self-seeking" part of the definition above.

So, you may be thinking, I am a mother, I'm already a servant! True. But love is about my spirit and attitude just as much as it is in what I do. Actually, if you look at the beginning of I Corinthians, you will see that it is the attitude that matters most of all. "If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing." I Cor. 13:3.

I'll be honest. I fail a lot at this. My attitude is often very selfish when I'm doing household "service" tasks. I am more often wondering why I have to do it than thinking about love and doing it with a positive attitude. I like to grumble. But grumbling is not doing my spirit, or my family, any good at all. So, I want to put specific energy into serving with love. When I do a task (laundry, cleaning, errands, cooking, etc.), I will pray specifically for the person benefitting from my act. And I will concentrate on that person's good qualities, thanking God for him or her and focusing on my love for and commitment to that person or persons.

For example, when I'm changing my toddler's diaper, I will thank God for her and pray a blessing over her. When I'm preparing dinner, I will thank God for my husband, who gets home later than he would like because he is working so hard every day to support our family and enable me to be home with our children. You get the idea. I challenge you to do the same! And come up with more ways to turn acts of service into a true expression of love, both inside and out. Share what you are doing, successes and screw-ups too. How are your efforts impacting your overall attitude and the atmosphere in your home? I would love to hear!

This Thing Called Love

Love is such a broad term. It refers to so many things. For the purpose of this project, I want to narrow it down a little bit. I want to start with the love that God has for us. Of course, that is also a huge topic! I will just touch on it a little bit. I think if we are to understand love and show it to others, we have to know how God loves us.

We have glimpses and examples of God's love here on earth. Often, God's love for us is referred to in Scripture as a parent's love for his child. Think for a moment about how much you love your children. I know that the love I have for my two kids is stronger than anything else I have ever felt in my life. I know that, without hesitation, I would die for my kids. I would jump in front of a moving vehicle, bullet, whatever, to protect them. And I wouldn't even think about it. I look at them and I'm overwhelmed with emotion. I can't imagine loving anyone or anything else more than that. This is how God loves us and then some! Let that sink in. God loves us infinitely more than we love our own children. Wow.

In I Corinthians 13:12, Paul says "Now we see but a poor reflection..." Apply this to love. If the reflection of God's love here on earth is a parent's love for a child, how tremendous is God's love for us! My great love for my children is only a poor reflection of how God loves me. Not even a very good reflection! What love the Father has for us, that the strongest love known to man is but a weak reflection! Again, wow.

I Corinthians also says that everything else will pass away, but only love will remain. That is how important this quality is. If we think of this life as a preparation for the life to come, then developing the fruit of love becomes even more important. In God's kingdom, there will be no need for a lot of things, like prophecy and speaking in tongues as mentioned in I Corinthians 13. We won't need hope either, because our hope will be realized in finally being in God's presence. Also, since we are in God's presence, there will be no need for faith. Hebrews defines faith as "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Hebrews 11:1. We will see God, so no need for faith anymore. But love will remain: the overwhelming love that the Father has for us and our great love for Him.

I want us all to digest this a little bit, so I'm going to continue the discussion on love and give some practical suggestions for growing in love in the next post! Please let me know what you think of my thoughts here! Anything to add?

What are the FOTS?

"The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control." These are the qualities that, as Christians, we are to develop in our lives. I guess that in the past I haven't really thought about exactly how these fruits were to develop in my life. I must have figured that since I'm a Christian, God would just bestow the fruits upon me and I would magically have them. I would suddenly be more loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, etc. But, when I think about it now, this is crazy! Sometimes I wish that this would happen. How nice would it be to just be a better person without having to do anything! We cannot really become better people without a period of growth. Just magically having the fruits would not better our spirits. It is the period of growth, the part that gets us the fruits, that really matters and that really makes us better people. It is change from the inside out.

So, what does this period of growth look like? How do I get from where I am now to having all of the fruits? I don't know about you, but it seems that when I try to just be more loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, etc. is when I fail the most miserably. Lately I've been thinking that there must be concrete, practical, and little steps I can take to start growing in these areas. I think it starts with knowing what exactly the fruits are. What does it mean to have each of these qualities? What does a fruitful life really look like? How does a fruitful person act, think, and treat people? This is where I want to begin this project. Taking each fruit one at a time and learning about it so that I can incorporate it into my life.

This life on earth is about learning and growing. It's about the journey. It's about growing into a person that can fellowship with God and be in His presence for eternity. C.S. Lewis says in his book Till We Have Faces, "How can [God] meet us face to face until we have faces?" The learning, trying, and growth that we experience in this life is giving us our real "faces" so that one day we can see face to face. Paul says in I Corinthians 13, "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face." This is our goal. Starting with the fruits is a way to move down the road towards that goal.

Welcome to the FOTS Project

I have decided to be proactive in my own spiritual growth and learning by looking at the fruits of the spirit (FOTS) and trying to find concrete ways of developing them in my life. I am a parent so there should be plenty of opportunities to practice!

God gives us daily challenges in order for us to grow. The harder the challenge, the more opportunity for growth is present. It is our responsibility to recognize even the mundane as a tool for spiritual growth and practice. Learning about God and staying in relationship or connection with Him is a daily discipline. How can we expect to have a relationship with God if we only think or learn about Him and His word on Sundays? I need a change of focus and an attitude adjustment on a regular basis. This project is just one way to do that.

This is how it will work. We will focus on one fruit each month and I will write about it every couple of days. My wonderful sister, who is doing this with me, may do some of the main entries too. Others will comment and contribute. Together we will learn about that fruit throughout the month and come up with ways to put it into practice, being deliberate and thoughtful about it each day. In order to do this, we will need to be in God's word to learn more and be active in prayer for God's help and support. My hope is that many people will choose to contribute so that we can learn from each other and, as a result, grow even more. So, please invite all of your friends too! Each person can be committed to participating as much or as little as she wants.

At the end see where we stand. Have we learned? Have we grown? Have the fruits become a routine part of our lives? Has my attitude changed and has the change remained consistent? Have relationships improved? Am I closer to God as a result of the practice? I'm guessing that the results will be better than we can imagine.

I am so excited about the possibilities for learning and growth with this project. It may be scary and I’m sure I will at times fall short. But I also know I need the practice! God has put me in this place at this time and with these responsibilities for a reason. I want to take advantage of it. The God of the universe cares about me (and about you!) enough to put me in a position to learn and grow. And He will be with me every step of the way. After all, it is the gift of His grace that allows us to try and sometimes fail. His grace and love cover over our failures so that we can keep trying, learning, and growing. This is going to be a wild ride. I can’t wait!