Ask only if you mean it . ..

Only if you want to carry the love . . . 

Oh, the relentless heart of God! Four years ago I asked Jesus to give me his heart for my beloved when I felt my feelings for him slipping. I knew it was wrong to let my heart's flame burn low, and I knew it was my responsibility to "guard  your heart, for it is the wellspring of life" (Proverbs 4:23). My charge alone to guard my heart and thoughts. Yes, that process began in me before the deepest betrayal of my life, and I'm grateful it did. Two things I've learned: 1) no one can kill your heart, but you can and do when you poison it with resentment, unforgiveness, selfishness, believing your own misperceptions, bitterness and contempt, and 2) don't asksJesus for his heart for someone unless you want implanted in you a relentless love that lays down your own wounds to look deeply into the inmost heart of another life and value that person with a love and with forgiveness that WILL NOT be quenched, period. 

It is that blazing passion for us that bared the back and stretched out the hands of Jesus to take the scourge and the nails and say, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing."  Love like that, in those circumstances, at the hands of betrayers and despisers?   "YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME" is what "rational" people who look out for themselves say. Look out for yourself, do what feels good and move on and cut your losses when it doesn't. That's what most rational people claim and advise to be mental and emotional health. But a note to us in the self-preserving, personally validating culture that is rapidly consuming the world: some choices are not good, period. 

Look out for yourself? That's not what I hear Jesus say, and this is where it gets hard and in your paradigm: "You have heard that it was said,'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' BUT I tell you:Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons (and daughters) or your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:43-45)


Do what feels good for you. I remember the two older boys who held me under in the deep end of the pool when I was nine years old. I'm guessing it felt good to them to exercise their power and watch me flail. I frankly thought I was going to die. That's what we do to each other, sometimes on purpose, more often unintentionally (that would be me in some dumb mistakes): we hold on to hurts, lash out and lacerate, exercise our rights and power, want our way and our ends by any means necessary to preserve what we think feels good for us. We see the leak in the boat and decide to take the one life vest and slide overboard instead of helping plug the hole; we look at the one - okay, even two - engine(s) out in a four-engine plane, put on a parachute and bail, rather than putting our body weight to the rudder with the pilot and landing the thing safely. 

But the heart of Jesus is relentless, and he comes up loving even after being held under by our "I'm perfectly capable of and justified in and frankly enjoy doing life my way,thank you very much." He was betrayed and despised, and we still do it to him, BUT HE DID WHAT WAS FAITHFULLY LOVING ANYWAY and came up gloriously victorious, forgiving and giving and breaking down the walls that kept us from the longing to receive us arms of God. Love doesn't always feel good. TOTALLY IRRATIONAL!

Yes, God's love IS IRRATIONAL - why on earth would HE give himself for the messes that are us -  which makes up a huge chunk of what makes God Holy, and wholly Righteous  and Good and Pure, wholly matchless, wholly unfathomable and wholly breathtaking. 

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

IRRATIONAL? Absolutely! He plugged the hole, put his weight to the rudder, all for relationship with us.

Oh, yes, I'm co-dependent: dependent on this Love Incarnate for my next heartbeat and breath, holding his hand for dear life as I go into the future single with no hope of ever being able to earn enough to support myself, and glad to wrap the tassels of my prayer shawl - his "wings," his promises - around my hands clasped by HIS as the hand of bride and bridegroom join together in the wedding ceremony. God binds himself to you by his promises and his Son; is that a thought to set your head and heart and rationality reeling? The Creator who spoke infernos of stars and dark matter and gravity and neutrinos and optic nerves and DNA and embryos into existence binds himself to you when you come to him through Jesus. God binds himself to YOU! Then he has the audacity to call you Hephzibah (delighted in) and Beulah (chosen) and rejoices over you! (Isaiah 62: 3-5)

So go ahead and ask for that heart, but be prepared to receive a passionate, unquenchable love for those who've done you the most wrong. It will hurt. If that prospect offends you, don't even ask Jesus for his heart for another. But if you dare to, what he gives you  in return is a heart free from bitterness, contempt, pride, anger, unforgiveness, and all the wounds that chained you to the pain of offenses. 

Did it get me my husband back? No - dare I risk the wrath of my friends who want good for me in saying not yet. And I admit maybe not ever, my marriage and hopes laid on the altar, but if Jesus asks me to be Hosea, I will be and will rejoice. Go figure when you dare to ask Jesus for his heart . . . . If Jesus doesn't, then I rejoice that my heart is bound by the promise of my Kinsman Redeemer Boaz himself and his gift to me of a piece of his precious - a word far too small for his indescribable- love.  

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God,because God is love.  . . This is love: not that we loved God BUT that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God, BUT if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."  (1 John 4: 7-8, 10-12)

Beloved, as John the Beloved would say, that's a risk worth taking and a love worth bearing. 

All I Have is All He Is

The Word in the middle of silence. The Word in uncertainty and no clear path. The Word in pain and grief. I hate to admit it, but so many times I have cried out to God that I need more than scripture; I need a visible sign of his hand at work in my battle. But there have been no signs. Oh, there have been apparent breakthroughs that turned into closed doors, promise stolen, and plenty of those. Friends see visions, have dreams, receive miracles . . . but not me. All I have is God’s Word from verses that have leaped out to me.

Is that enough to sustain me/you in the deadliest battle and hurricane-strength storm? Maybe that’s what I’m here to learn. I don’t know for certain, but maybe why I’m here is to tell someone else going through Heck that God’s Word IS enough. Right now I’m listening to a live worship CD “Let Your Healing Flow” with an inspired prophetic song/word from Andre Ashby: “My word is sure, and it will stand forever and evermore. My word is sure and it will not return void unto me, for I am a faithful God and I see your need. And I’m drawing near to you, I’m drawing near to you to touch you, to heal you, to make you whole. My word will stand forever. Come boldly unto me, come boldly to my throne of grace, for my grace is sufficient for all you need. Come boldly unto me, come boldly, for I will prove myself to you, I am a great big God. There’s nothing too hard for me, there’s nothing that I cannot do. I am all you need, and I’m here for you.”

And he’s all I have. I have no power to change my husband’s choices, his stubborn selfishness and hard heart, his rebellion against God, newest betrayal and full-speed-ahead hardened will to divorce. All I have is God’s Word that I have been praying and confessing over communion every morning for the past year. BUT I know that Jesus is the Living Word, that he is his word – who he is IS his Word - that God watches over his Word to perform it:

The LORD said to me, ‘”You have seen correctly, for I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled.” Jeremiah 1:12

As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth . . . so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. Isaiah 55: 10-11

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the LORD more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. O Israel, put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. Psalm 130: 5-6

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Hebrews 4:12

Almost every moment of every day, as soon as I open my eyes in the morning, I am aware of my complete helplessness to change my circumstances and the heart and mind and will of my beloved husband. BUT I am not falling into the void, even though I feel like it many times. Even though the word some days seems like the thinnest thread I cling to on the edge of a bottomless abyss and I can feel the winds of destruction swirling up from the depths, YET my life is not determined by my husband’s choices, so says my God’s word:

The LORD foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples. BUT the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations. Psalm 33: 11

I am God, and there is no other . . . I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. Isaiah 46:10

Even to your old age and gray hairs, I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you. Isaiah 46:4

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1

And the word tells me this much of God’s will for sure: rejoice in the LORD always and in everything give thanks. He promises to be my shield and sword (Genesis 15: 1 and Deuteronomy 33: 29) and he will fight the battle for me (Exodus 14:14 and 2 Chronicles 20: 15,17)

Not much from me, but much from the Word today. All I have to give you is all I have to live, hope, trust and rejoice in: God’s Word is God himself, and he cannot and will not deny it, no matter what my circumstances look like and no matter who wars against me. God is love, his love endures, and the purposes of his heart will bring me victory somehow, some day, some way, for sure.

So I will bless my enemy and pray for the one who bitterly abuses me, because God’s word tells me to, and I know the Spirit will pour out upon my husband every spiritual blessing and weapon against deception from the coals of the altar of Heaven, where Jesus lives as the great high priest to speak and decree and make intercession and send his living word for him, and for me, too.

Does that give you something to cling to? I hope so. My greatest praise to God and the greatest work of my life may just be trusting in his Word and living in the peace, hope and victory it brings, and encouraging some other grieving heart to do the same. Whoever you are, I love you, and I pray for victory for you, too.

A " . . . BUT . . ." to move: Jesus, all I hear is silence, all I see are closed doors and looming defeat, BUT you are your Word, and you promise to deliver on your Word when I confess it and cling to it. Because I know you don't lie and you don't dishonor your Word or your people who believe it, I will hang onto this thread knowing that your Word is stronger and more powerful than hammered steel. I will trust you, even when it doesn't look like I should, and I will rejoice in all you are. Amen!

You own " . . . But . . . " to move: Jesus, I feel desperate, lost, without hope, BUT I trust that you _________________________