By Our Love

Cute Colors

“And they will know we are Christians by our love, by our love...” Walking hand in hand down the hallways of a nursing home where I worked, a mentally-challenged choir from Hope Haven trilled like a robin heralding spring.

A lonely tendril in my aching heart reached out to lap up the life in those words, but it could not burst through a topsoil of hell and damnation.

“We will walk with each other, we will walk hand in hand...”  No, no, no!  Do not listen to this!  This song is not “the Truth” as our church teaches.  I may not walk hand in hand with such false assurance.  As the fires of hell nipped at my heels, I frantically slipped on my stoic mask and judgmental cloak and snuffed out the wistful longing to know what comfort these people had that was so foreign to me.  And the chains that kept me from the love of Jesus tightened their grip.

Sexual abuse under the name of God threw away the keys to the chains, and I lost even more of who I am made to be in Christ Jesus.  I was branded as the whore who beguiled the “poor servant of God.”  No one ever asked me what really happened, and I was doomed to shame. 

Many years later, my husband and I finally left that church.  A “friend” warned me, “Just THINK of what you’re doing to your children,” she said.  She and many others treated us as if we and our children were now lost because we had left the only church who preached “the truth.”  In their eyes, we were headed to hell. 

Praise God!  My life is in the hands of God, not that of people.  I will never be lost to Jesus.  He alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. What greater love is there than that He would sacrifice His own life to save you and me?  In fact, every word Jesus says and every act He performs is bursting with unselfish love and boundless compassion. 

I still hear those precious voices singing a melody of love.  I thank God that He planted that seed in my memory and that today those words have blossomed in my heart.  I wish I could go back to that time and hold hands with them and sing praises with them at the top of my voice.

Lesson from an Ant

The ant is often used as an example of diligence and hard work as we read in Proverbs 6: 6, "Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise."  But the ant also teaches a lesson of perseverance. 

Fleeing from his enemies, a fourteenth-century conqueror named Tamerlane hid in an abandoned building as the enemy searched for him.  As he lay there, probably battle-scarred and weary, his fear turned to curiosity as he watched an ant.

The ant heaved a kernel of corn much larger than himself onto his back.  He crawled up a stone wall with it, lost his footing, and tumbled down.  Not deterred, the ant picked it up and again headed up the wall.

Tamerlane began to count.  Twenty... forty... sixty...  Still the ant picked the corn up again.  Finally, after 70 attempts, the ant made it up the wall with its load.

Tamerlane was fascinated by this lesson from the ant.  He knew he needed to persevere.  He again gathered up an army and eventually was a mighty conqueror.

Gathering from what I have read of Tamerlane, he was a cruel and greedy conqueror.  Nevertheless, we can still take to heart the lesson he learned from an ant.

Can you imagine how weary that little ant must have been?  Yet he never gave up until he had accomplished what he had set out to do.  Makes me tired to even think of it...

As long as we live on this earth, we will at times be loaded down with troubles and sorrows.  It's a bone-weary uphill battle, but we have an Almighty Conqueror in Jesus Christ Who has conquered the load of our sin for us.  Because of this and through our Savior's strength, we can keep getting up again when troubles overwhelm us.  We will complete our climb and be able to stand at the top of the wall and shout, "Victory in Jesus!"

Reader, have you learned a personal lesson from one of God's creatures?  Will you share it with us?

Struggles Teach Us to Fly

No one is without struggles in this life, and sometimes it can get so wearisome that we wish we could just find an easy way out.  But easy isn't better.

I struggle with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and I often get bronchial infections.  Last week it was to the point that I ended up in the ER with a breathing treatment and IV fluids and meds.  I had picked up a stomach and a bronchial virus.  I felt so sick I asked Jesus to take me.  I was so weary of coughing and chest aches and pains.

One morning I read a devotion from Streams in the Desert.  A man observe an emperor moth emerge from its funnel-shaped cocoon.  As the moth struggled to squeeze through the small opening, the man felt sorry for it and thought he'd make it easier for the moth.  With a scissors he clipped the sides of the opening allowing the moth to slip out more easily.  The moth walked around with a big body and shriveled up wings, was never able to fly, and eventually died.

For that poor moth, easier was not better.  The tight squeeze pressures the fluid into a moth's wings.  Without that struggle, the moth will never have the privilege of flying.

What an encouraging analogy from God's creation!  The struggles in our lives are just tight squeezes that will prepare our wings.  The greater the struggle, the greater the energy in our wings to fly for Jesus. 

Jesus, there are so many in this world who struggle.  You know the plights of each and every person.  You know their weariness.  Strengthen each and every one with the energy juice of Your love so they can better fly for You and Your honor in this life.  All things are possible through You!  Thank You, Jesus, for your indescribable suffering in our place.