Facets of Faith

Conversations about life, faith, and friendship.

Who Do You Love?

by //

Don’t instantly check out as you see our topic at FACETS this month. Yes, it’s about love. But perhaps God wants to speak something new to your heart through the words He has given Kim, Jennifer or myself. And you’ll definitely want to see what my friend Zolei shares on the topic of love in week four!

February. The month of love. But what if we aren’t in the mood? Sometimes that’s the case. Right? We know we should love, but we just don’t want to. We know we might be missing out, but we might avoid the muddy mess of it all too.

Who do you love?

Do you even want to? Or are you sick of trying? Maybe all you want to do is snuggle up with your dog. Show me an animal lover and you may see someone who’s been deeply hurt and finds it difficult to trust humans. (I may know a thing or two about that.)

Let’s face it. Love can be stickier than cotton candy. Love can melt our heart faster than chocolates left in the car on a hot summer day. Love can be messy! Love can leave a stain that makes us think to ourselves, “Perhaps it’s easier to just steer clear.”

Maybe your line sounds something more like this, “I’ll just deal with this empty, dry, loveless relationship until death do us part. I’ll endure it, but I won’t enjoy it.”

Friendships that sour and leave a bitter taste in our mouth. Loves lost, but not before first leaving us scarred. And scared. Familial love that didn’t look like it does in the bedtime stories of children safely nestled in their beds, mama and papa tucking them in before the child drifts off in dreamy slumber.

Love is not always easy. Love is more likely almost always hard. Love is work. Love isn’t the stuff of romantic comedies or fairy tales. Love is the stuff of in the trenches digging in and doing what’s right.  And getting up the next day and putting loving well on repeat, not missing a beat. When we get it wrong? Fess up! Ask for forgiveness. A – pol- o – gize

Love is leaning in with intention. Love isn’t leaving when the going gets tough. I didn’t always know that.

My hope and prayer for everyone who finds this blog is that you realize while love isn’t easy, it’s possible and even necessary. Please, please don’t close yourself off to the idea of love. It’s not too lofty for anyone.  It’s not too late.

Hope for authentic love is not lost. Whether that love you so desperately desire is for a partner, a friend, a child, a parent, or someone else, love is possible for you.  But it will take some work on your part. I’ve done some work in that area myself.

But lean in to hear this…

It was worth it!

The hard work was absolutely worth it! I’ve walked through some love land mines. I could have been blown to bits, but I’m here. Still breathing. And smiling. Most days, heart full. And when it’s not, I run to Jesus and let Him fill me with His love, so I can operate from a place of confident boldness. I am loved.

I am loved! Which makes me able to love!

You are loved! Which makes you able to love!

If you haven’t received Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are loved!

But!

But you don’t have access to His power and ability to love others well. It’s only when we accept Jesus into our hearts that we are given the Holy Spirit (God in us). We don’t have strength to love the difficult people in our own power, but in God’s we can.

And you aren’t in your pursuit of love alone. God is love. God desires love for all His children. We were made to love, because we were made in His image.

If you want to receive Jesus into your heart, pray a simple prayer of surrender. “Jesus, I want to know You and Your love. I want to know how to love others well. I want and need Your power to do so. I give You my heart. Please help me to receive Your love and guidance for my life. Help me always to remain in Your love, power, and soundness of mind. Help me to be bold in my faith and in my love for You, myself, and others. Give me confidence and the ability to overcome my fears. In Jesus’ name, amen!”

Most of us are probably very familiar with the greatest commandments to love God and love others as ourselves. (See Matthew 22:36-39)  Love coded into our DNA by design. When we go against love, we go against the grain of God’s plan for each of our lives. If we resist love, we resist God Himself.

By the way, one can be IN a relationship but not act in a loving way. I know we are all aware of this, but it’s worth mentioning. Just because we are partnered up with someone romantically or just because we are in a friendship with someone, doesn’t mean we are in a love relationship with them.

We can treat our friends less than loving. We can be unloving to our spouse. We can show our worst side to those closest to us as we show our sparkly, shiny selves to those further off in the distance.

I’ve been in ministry long enough to see, one never knows what goes on behind closed doors.  If that’s you, sitting behind a door that you’d be completely embarrassed if someone peered behind and saw what really goes on… love is not too late for you either. Promise! It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it. Redemption ALWAYS is!

No relationship. No disillusioned love is beyond hope. Hearts still beating? Hope’s still lingering!  If there are old wounds to clean up, do so. It might be more work than if you were a newlywed, but God will help you. HE IS BIG ENOUGH! Don’t give up! Don’t throw in the towel when God is fully capable of cleaning up any mess we make!

Bounty may be the quicker picker upper, but God is the master cleanser and restorer. He not only cleans up. He makes new. Somehow better than when we first began if only we’ll hand our mess over to Him, and follow His lead as He helps us love well.

How do I know?

He’s done it for me! And He does it for me! (Because it’s a daily thing.)

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.─2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV

Some of you may know my story, that I was married before – and lost everything. Everything. But in the losing of─well─my life, I gained everything.

The gain was instant and gradual all at once. I was flooded with God’s love. A love so genuine, sweet, and authentic that it felt foreign – false almost. You know. Too good to be true. Only thing is … it wasn’t. God was (and is) good for His word. That felt foreign. Someone I could trust. But I could. And I can.

In the beginning I was terrified to trust God, or anyone else. I’d always trusted myself – trust your gut – until you find out that’s not the most reliable source.

I was so afraid to love, I almost lost it!

FEAR LIMITS LOVE

My fear of getting hurt by another human almost left my heart walled off from receiving a sweet gift from God. I have been gifted a wonderful second chance in a godly marriage.

But it almost didn’t happen.

Almost seven years down the line, I’m glad it did! And I’m so glad God understood my fear (and its source) and in His mercy and goodness made His plan for my life abundantly clear.

The Scripture above says God didn’t give us a spirit of fear.

Fear is from the enemy who wants to keep us isolated and alone. Love is from God. He is the source of our love. He gives us the power to love, on the days when it’s easy. And on the days when love takes work.  Real life is made up of both.

Sometimes we can’t love in our own power. Those people that grate on our very last nerve. Like nails on a chalk board. The ones that aren’t easy to love are still lovable in God’s sight. Who do you love? You love them too!

That’s the kind of love we can’t do in our own power. That’s supernatural love.

Our scripture goes on to say God gives us a spirit of power. His power. We’re not in the business of loving the prickly ones in our own power, but His! I may have muttered quietly in my head a time or two, “Help me love this one well, Lord. Because if it’s up to me …. well, I’m pretty sure I’m going to blow it!”

An excerpt from the Message 2 Timothy 1:7 says, “God doesn’t want us to be shy with his gifts, but bold and loving and sensible.”

“God doesn’t want us to be shy with his gifts, but bold and loving and sensible.”

When’s the last time you thought of love as being sensible? A gift? Perhaps. Bold? Sure. Sensible? Huh?

Sensible love is a gift.

Long after the adrenaline subsides and relationships settle into pleasant companionship, relationships of genuine concern, love roots in sensible plots of land. Flowers bloom from season to season. Soil fertilized well. Relationships fortified. Forged strong from some rough patches weathered well together. Fragrant blooms of fresh cut flowers still … because love and life aren’t assumed but invested in.

Who do I love?

I love God. I love others. I love myself, because not doing so is a form of insecurity and pride that is rooted so deep in fear that can strangle out love’s possibility for growth.

And I want love to grow.

So I’ll weed and water, preparing the soil of my heart to be ready to give and receive love.

In God’s power as we love others, we are not only giving gifts. We are receiving them too.  For almost certainly what we plant, we will harvest. The more love we plant and nurture, the more love will grow, and the more we will receive. Pressed down. Full to overflowing.

I pray bushel baskets of love filled to capacity for you, sweet friend! I pray you are able to access God’s power (because it’s there for the asking) to love others well. And I pray when you do the hard work of loving others well, you see a bountiful harvest. And if you’ve been deeply hurt and are afraid to love, really love, that you are given a boldness and discernment from God to know who to trust with your heart. I pray God gives you spiritual eyes to see who will love you well. (Because God showed me and He was oh-so-right!) In Jesus’ name, amen!

Join the conversation here or on our Facebook page.

Difficult People: Turkeys in Disguise

by //

Hi, friends! I (Jennifer) have the privilege of introducing you to my good friend, Hyacynth Worth. You should know that her heart is precious to me. She blesses me with wisdom and her friendship. If you want to know more about her and her beautiful family, please visit her blog HERE. She is a wealth of relational and parenting wisdom (especially for adoptive families)! I hope you enjoy her thoughts this week.

What do you do when you have a giant turkey in your life?

If it gobbles like a turkey, struts like a turkey, and acts like a turkey—chances are it’s a turkey.

I asked my ten year old son, who hunts turkeys, if that’s true. He looked at me like I was having a moment and said, “Well, yeah. Pretty much, Mom.”

I think we have a tendency to feel this way about our relationships, too; we understand the obvious turkeys in our lives, as they tend to be the birds who cause us to inwardly cringe at their outward displays of foolishness.

Note: if you feel like you need some extra turkey identification work in the area of relationships {not the field}, the book of Proverbs details the actions of the obvious turkeys in our lives. They are the people who don’t know what they don’t know, and you can tell by the way they gobble— errrr—talk and walk in ways of obvious foolishness.

“Fools think their own way is right, but the wise listen to others.” Proverbs 12:15 NLT

“The wise don’t make a show of their knowledge, but fools broadcast their foolishness.” Proverbs 12:23

But what about when it doesn’t talk or walk like a turkey because it has all the right words and so many of the right moves of a bird of another feather … and yet we’re still left with the keen sense that what we’re staring at what has got to be a turkey disguised as a well-adjusted bird because dude’s acting like a fool in some specific area or areas of life and doesn’t even seem to know it?

That’s where relationships get even trickier — when we’re trying to love well and interact well with the not-so-easily identifiable turkeys in our lives and wondering why the interactions don’t seem to be going so well.

The turkeys disguised as a well-adjusted bird with all the right moves and all the right words but mismatching lives are the ones who say the right things and seem to have a pretty stately walk, yet act in ways that would point to the contrary. I’ve heard them referred to as biblical fools. Mostly, though, when I think of these kinds of turkeys, I think of the Pharisees with whom Jesus had so many words about their hard hearts.

The Pharisees.

The most learned men of their time with a deep understanding of the scriptures and the most knowledge of God.

Men who opposed the healing of suffering people because no work was to be done on the rest day.

Men ready to cast stones on a woman caught in adultery as though they had no sin of their own.

Men who valued the rules over the restoration of relationships.

Men whose hearts are often a lot like my own.

It’s tempting to look at the pharisees and under our breaths think, “Idiots. Of course, relationship and restoration of relationship is more important than the rules.”

But these men likely knew full well the stories of their ancestors who did things like step out to brace the falling ark of the covenant and then were immediately killed for violating the law of God concerning the transportation of the ark.

These are the men who play by the book because the Book was what they knew.

They didn’t understand the depth of relationship God seeks with us; neither did their previous generations, which is why the nation of Israel needed prophet after prophet to speak God’s truth and then eventually Jesus to come and show them God’s heart.

They are a bunch of turkeys in disguise. And as believers in Jesus, haven’t each of us been, too?

If we’re each committing to honesty, I think we can all say we’ve all been turkeys in disguise.

Have you ever caught yourself reacting to a circumstance in a way that completely confuses you? For me, it’s when I’m counseling one of my kids in a direction of life and then I find myself struggling to take my own advice.

At one point during his ministry Jesus says that we ought to be more aware of the planks in our own eyes than the specks in our brothers’ and sisters’ eyes. In my house, we call this, “you do you.” Meaning, if you see a speck in your brother’s eye, first check your own to make sure you don’t have a huge log blocking your vision.

Why? Because none of us can change another person’s heart through lectures or force or punishment or shaming. Our hearts are truly changed toward God’s heart of love only in response to one thing: unconditional love that’s full of truth and grace.

Jesus remarks that the most important of all the law and commandments is to love:

“One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”

Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:25-40

That second equally important commandment is often misunderstood, so let’s break it down: we are to love our neighbors as we love our selves — as in we are to love them as an extension of our own bodies.

So … how do we want to be treated when we are (knowingly or unknowingly) stuck strutting around like giant turkeys?

We see it in Jesus’ response to the woman caught in an act of adultery (John 8):

“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”

They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!”

It’s as if Jesus is saying, we don’t beat down others, we build them up. We call them to a higher living, a higher purpose, a higher way of living more in harmony with how God created us.

So what do we do with a giant turkey in our life?

We resist the urge to roast them and instead tread with them in equal parts truth and grace, much in the way Jesus shows us time and time again. Let’s pick up with Jesus and the woman the crowd wanted to stone after he boldly welcomes he who was without sin to throw the first one.

“Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.

When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”

“No, Lord,” she said.

And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”

 

Holiday Help for Taming Turkeys

by //

We’re talking turkeys this month at Facets of Faith, and we don’t mean sharing recipes. The holidays are here and we decided to talk about how we interact with those who might get our goat as we gather. Tracy and Jen shared earlier this month. Click on their names to catch up, or sign up to receive our email so you don’t miss a post! Stay tuned next week as we open this space with a special guest. As for me (Kim)? Well, here’s my recipe for taming those turkeys.

She stood in the doorway, drying her hands on the towel. Pressured by the weight of to-do’s, she looked around for her sister. Surely she knew the importance of this meal. Surely her sister knew that she couldn’t do all of the work all on her own?

Her mind checked off the task she just completed as her eyes skimmed the crowd. One down and sixteen to go, she thought wryly. Now where is that sister of hers?

The familiar frustration began to bubble inside. A slight breeze blew in a whiff of the food cooking in the pot. Almost done, she thought. But the places hadn’t been set and there was more food to be made.

Frustration turned to irritation. How could her sister leave her in a lurch like this? Today of all days? She was just as excited to have such special guests at her house; she wanted everything to be perfect.

She caught a glimpse of her sister’s hair. There she was! Ruffled and flustered, she headed over, determined to give her sister a piece of her mind. How dare she . . .

Oh, she was with him. How could her sister just sit there? Entranced. Enthralled. She caught another whiff of the food. Any longer and it’d be ruined.

She stepped closer and cleared her throat. Surely that would signal her need for help. Nothing —not even twitch. She coughed. She might as well be invisible. She was about to say her sister’s name when he looked up at her, their most treasure guest. Didn’t he know what a turkey her sister was being? Didn’t he realize how much help she needed?

Before she knew what was happening her words tumbled out in complaint. “Lord, doesn’t it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me.” (Luke 10:40b)

Special occasions and family dinners bring out the best in us, don’t they? (insert eye roll emoji here) And when the turkey we’re dealing with isn’t the one we’re sticking in the oven, those special times can sometimes turn into emotional war zones. So how do we handle those people who just seem to push our button at just the wrong time?

I love this story of Martha and her sister, Mary. They real. They’re siblings. And they don’t always get along. Martha wants everything perfect while Mary? Well, she must be the extrovert of the two because she’s always found around people.

Seriously though. Isn’t it great that we can look at Scripture and catch a glimpse of . . . ourselves?

Gulp.

I know. Most of us would like to admit we’re Martha and Martha is doing what is right. She’s scurrying about getting the house and food ready for the party. She’s serving and working and going about her business until . . . she can’t find her sister, Mary. Enter the whining. Can you imagine standing before Jesus and saying, “L o r d . . .”. I liken it to the times my kids would call out my name: “M o m . . .” Each letter drawn out for maximum impact.

Is that what Martha sounded like? Exasperated? Frustrated? Weary?

But the truth of the matter is this —she did the right thing. Think about that for a moment: she called out to Jesus. She didn’t turn to her turkey of a sister and begin to chew. No, she turned toward the One whom she believed could help.

“Lord, help.”

She wanted to get the job done, the dinner finished, and people fed so she fixed her eyes on the One who loves her, and who loves her sister.

And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.” Hebrews 12:1b-2a, NLT

We, too, can do that when we’re faced with those challenging people sitting at the table across from us. We can shift our gaze from their turkey-behavior (insert what you’re imagining here), fix our eyes firmly on Jesus, and remember there are days when the turkey is us. We can pray for peace to fill the room, for strength to zip our lips, or a supernatural connection that only Jesus can create.

Every person has a story that has made them to be the person they are today. My mom taught me that, and she’s right. Think of the most challenging person you’ve encountered within the last few days. Now take a moment and call to mind what you know about their story. Is there sorrow? Loss? Brokenness of sorts? Has the pain been healed or the challenges resolved?

Would you be willing to step into their mess? (insert blank stare emoji here)

I know. Maybe not. But what if? What if that’s the very thing God is calling you to do this holiday season? What if that conversation at that particular dinner or brunch or party is where God will shine His light of mercy and grace not only on you, but through you?

Yes, Jesus said that Mary chose the most important thing —Himself. But I think Martha learned that truth, too. People are worth stepping into their mess so we can offer the grace and comfort that Jesus has offered to us. Even with those turkeys that might get our goat now and then.

He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.” 2 Corinthians 1:4, NLT

How do you deal with the turkeys in your life? Feel free to comment below or jump over to our Facebook page. We’d love to hear from you!