Tag: Holy Spirit. guide

pressing in for connection

Karla Lees

Until you commit to the goal of connection, all the relational tools in the world are not going to help you. It’s only when you decide to take responsibility to pursue connection that you will discover just why you need these tools. It’s only when you commit to moving toward someone that you will seek the knowledge and skills necessary to reach them. – Danny Silk, Keep Your Love On

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It’s only in the choosing that our pursuit ignites with purpose.

If you encountered someone who was deaf, and you wanted to communicate with them, you would seek out sign language to help you do so. If they were blind, you might learn to write them a letter in braille, or add more descriptive words to your dialogue.

When we choose to love someone, we decide to study them and find out what they love, then discover how we can best offer them our love.

And we can only do so when we chose to do so whole heartedly.

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Jeremiah 29:13 reminds us that God promises those who chose to wholeheartedly seek Him will find Him.

When we are intent on learning more about the ones we love, we will discover who they are.

And when we discover who they are, we are able to love them more deeply and whole heartedly in response.

It all begins with our choice.

Will we press in for deeper connection, or settle for surface level fluff?

Like cotton candy, which tastes good going down but doesn’t satisfy your hunger, surface loving never satisfies our deeper longing to connect with one another.

Because God ultimately hardwired us to connect with Him, and to one another.

I have decided to throw off my usually cover of restraint and purposely chase after God with all I am and have.

And I am choosing to do the same in all my relationships.

With God as the primary lover of my soul, and His guidance, I will discover how to love more, deeper, stronger and better.

For when Love Himself is your pursuit, and promises to be found by all who purpose to seek after Him?

With Him, I can love as He intends. With all my heart, for His glory and his honour, to better His Kingdom. Loving those about me as He has designed them to want to be loved, and as His love overflows through me to and for them.

honor on her

Karla Lees

This week we will be visiting my hubby’s mom for mother’s day.

We speak fairly regularly by phone when we can, however in order to show her honor we don’t visit too often.

Here is a hard lesson I have learned about honor.

We can honor a person without honoring their choices.

My mother in law is a very broken woman.  I know without a doubt that she loves God. She is however very bound due to trauma in her past that has not been resolved. Many of the choices in life have not been ones I can honor.

However, God has given me the ability to move past the hurt she feels and wields as a weapon at times, and honor her as the daughter of the King she is.

Do you too struggle with loving someone who is not making wise choices?

I see the disciples struggling with this a bit in the gospels, and I love them all the more for it, because they represent us. The regular Joes & Joannas, whom Jesus came to walk beside, and show how to honor.

Jesus never once told a sinner it was okay they had sinned. He loved them where they were at, and pointed to a better way.

He honored them as people, while not liking their choices, the fall out of their sin.

I am now able to show honor as He leads me to my mother-in-law, because I too know that I don’t always make wise choices.

Yes God honored me by choosing me, in the midst of my sin.

Its time for us to extend grace and honor those He came to save. Seeing them as He does…the broken, hurting, lost who don’t know how much their Father loves them.

He bestowed the biggest honor on each and every one of us through the Cross.

He took on our failures, sins, bad choices so we could be free, and become part of His family.

What an honor.

If you too have a loved one you struggle to be around at times, remember God honored those who didn’t deserve it with His gift of Jesus.   You, and I included.

As His beloved, we need to extend that honor to all those around us.

There were moments when the disciples didn’t get it, and Jesus patiently would offer an explanation, and I am sure offer His Father prayers that they would understand at the right time!

He modeled showing honor to us all when He was with us on earth:

Love.
Grace.
Mercy.
Patience.
Forgiveness.
Honor.

(P.S. I am not suggesting you purposefully put yourself in front of any kind of firing gun, if a relationship is abusive.  In that case, you can best show honor through prayer, and seeking His direction.  Honor His request to pray for those who hurt you. for them to come to see Him and be transformed. Jesus didn’t intentionally seek out the Pharisees, but was prepared to answer them when they turned up.)

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