Today, despite having to wake up much earlier than my body would like, and despite feeling bogged down by routine, I am going to make a conscious effort to bask in the love of my Lord and Savior, and to pray that my husband will do the same. I want to be so consumed by His love that it pours out of me in the form of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. I want the Spirit to control me instead of being controlled by fear of failure, of losing God's love and His blessing. Although I know that the reason this fear controls me is because I am believing lies, those lies are not as easily recognizable as I once thought they were. There are times when it's obvious to me that I'm trying to earn God's approval by works. I recognize that it's happening and I ask God to forgive me and to change my heart, but I still have this feeling that something is not right.
This is not something that I have only been dealing with lately, I've struggled with it my whole life. It's only lately that God has been able to work in my heart and soften it to some things that I've never seen before. One of those things is how deeply and subtly a works-mentality has been rooted, not only in my heart, but in Seth's as well. This is not to say that in our minds we believe we are justified by works, or that we can earn the love of Christ which is so freely given. We don't consciously think that, and for the most part we don't display it in our actions. The problem is in our hearts. We struggle with peace and joy because we are compelled by a nagging feeling that we have to earn God's love, and by fear that if we let go of trying to earn His love we will become complacent, apathetic, or even fall back into the world. Because this is often our motivation, we tend to feel exhausted, unsatisfied, and that we are not bearing fruit. Our desire is to serve the Lord and to please Him, and though those are good desires our focus is wrong, hence the dissatisfaction.
So how do we change? How do we let love compel us? How do we let the Spirit work freely through us so that we can bear the fruit of the Spirit? I don't have the answers to these questions, but I'm going to start by spending more time thanking and praising the Lord for His amazing gift of salvation and I'm going to keep praying. I'm going to pray that this work He has started in my heart will continue. I'm going to pray that He will stir in my husband's heart, that we will both let go of our perfectionism and our need to contribute to our sanctification. I'm going to pray that we will stand on God's word and trust that by His Spirit He will keep our feet from stumbling and He will sanctify us. I'm going to pray that our focus will be Jesus and not our sanctification, that our eyes will be opened to what we really are, poor, blind, and naked. But Jesus, and only Jesus, has made us fellow heirs with Him, He has made us rich, He has given us eyes to see Him, and He has clothed us in righteousness. We are nothing but He has given us everything.
This may seem like a random subject and strangely placed, but my heart is so hungry to learn this lesson He is teaching me. I don't know if everything I said makes sense, but I needed to share it. Thanks for listening!
