Slightly reduced.

{I wrote this in my personal journal on September 29, 2009, as a reflection while reading "Reduce Me To Love" by Joyce Meyer, long before any of "2010 changes" occurred. I thought it would be fun to share this Valentine's Day 2011. A day just like every other, but one to be reminded of how much our Father loves us. So much that He sent His son to die for us. John 3:16.}

I wonder if everyone struggles to surrender to the Lord as much as I do. I trust Him, I certainly do. But, I don't know how to hand things over. Maybe because I can't tangibly hand Him anything. But maybe it relates to my "do not act without praying, do not pray without acting" post [a personal journal entry, maybe someday I will share]. Something I definitely need to work on.

In reading Joyce Meyer's "Reduce Me to Love" I am seeing so many areas of me that need humbling. I have journaled about this throughout, and finally have my book with me to catch up on things that have really hit home for me in this book.

The first thing that I underlined was "When we put our time and energy into things that do not fulfill us, we feel frustrated". I know that I underlined that because of [fill in the blank for you] and being frustrated. I was putting that priority ahead of the priorities that God has called me to, of course I was frustrated. As I am learning to walk in love and be a student of love I think that my [blank] will flourish, the frustration will go away. Instead, I need to use [blank] as an opportunity to be an outreach of God's love.

In the Bible, God tells us that love is even more important that faith! In I Corinthians 13:2 Paul says "if we have enough faith to move mountains and have not love, we are nothing". I know my faith is strong right now, I know my love walk is at the "still learning to crawl" stage. It is our personal love walk that gives us confidence before God and enables us to receive from Him what we ask for in prayer. I John 3:18-23 says "Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him." Be Christlike. Be His disciple. If I love God, I need to act like it.

I have the ability to minister to others. We live in a world of people looking for something real, something tangible. They are looking for love and God is love. I can tangibly show them that. I'm reminded here of a quote "Your walk talks and your talk talks, but your walk talks louder than your talk talks." That is SO important for my son. When he was baptized the pastor said "there will come a time in Matthew's life that it will not be what you say but how you act" that raises Matthew to be a God-fearing Christian.

I Corinth 14:1 says "Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy (the action, function or faculty of a prophet (a person who speaks for God)). Meyer says "If you and I want to learn about love, we will have to study it. We will have to read books about it, listen to teaching tapes on it, familiarize ourselves with everything Jesus and the apostles said about it." Meyer asks us to find someone who operates in love and study that individual. See how he handles people and difficult or tense situations. Observe how he gives. Examine the fruit in his life. I need to pray that God would make this person evident in my life.

Meyer says "Love can melt the hardest heart, it can heal the wounds of the broken heart and it can quiet the fears of the anxious heart. Most of the things we devote our time and energy to are things that are currently passing away, things that will not last, things that are not eternal. Let's put our time and energy in to something lasting - love."