Walking Love
Loving God and serving men is found in the little things we do that leaves beauty and sweet smiles on the faces of those we meet each day.
This is what it’s like to be a beneficiary of walking love. To have dire need of
something: shelter, food, clothing, encouragement, wisdom, rebuke, correction, advice, kindness, help and yes, even money… and to receive it just when you need it the most, even from the most unlikely sources. To feel the relief of knowing that God knows you. Knows your exact location, situation, need and He can and is well and truly able to take care of you as He promised He would. It’s a cold glass of pure water on a hot, dry day. Relief, in other words.
Life’s journey can sometimes be hectic and often is very unpredictable. Particularly when you have surrendered everything to God for Him to do what He likes with you. His training methods are very unique. They ALWAYS match up with what you absolutely must learn in order to be who you absolutely must be. The other thing about God’s training is this, He makes sure to match up your training and experiences with others in His family that He too is training and raising up.
His sword is double-edged not only for the individual’s spirit and flesh or joints and marrow… but is communal for brother to brother, sister to sister, husband to wife, parent to child and so on. It doesn’t stop. He makes sure that what I need is tied up in you and what you need is tied up in somebody else and all is tied up in the training He desires to provide each one so that at the end of all things, none are lost but all are transformed into His image (as iron sharpens iron).
God created a network when He created man. The soil needs our consideration and protection, as does the water and the air. Much much more than this, our brothers and sisters need love and consideration and care. Those He made in His image and according to His likeness. We are expected and indeed needed to express God to one another, to give Him leeway to do what only He can do on earth, as it is in Heaven. To sever those ties is to lose love and value upon the earth. Which is why creation is still groaning for the manifestation of His sons, because we often don’t
connect to the needs of His body as and when we should.
Years ago, when I first (properly) believed, God showed me a network of interconnected people that He was building. It looked to me like a fishing net, link upon link upon link. He explained to me that this is what it is supposed to be like in His Kingdom. One piece, made up of many interconnected joints giving strength to the whole. He gave me the picture of a mountain-climbing expedition, to further clarify what He was saying. He said, “What I desire of you,” (His children) “is, that the one with strength in one area, who has overcome something will, having reached a new height, bend down and help the next person up, who will – in turn – do the same for the next and so on and so forth.” He said that we need one another and that He has put different strengths in different people and all the answers that we need are in each other. The key is to find out what is in His heart concerning the people He brings our way and handling them EXACTLY and PRECISELY how He instructs.
Once, very early in my walk, He sent me on an errand, to give some money to one of His daughters. As we went, I got puffed up in my head. “Hey! See me, going to do something for God. I must be important somehow. He has chosen to use ME! Oh look at me!! Wow, I’m really something. I’m doing my part for the Kingdom!! Hey!” What followed next not only shocked me and silenced me, but that big puffed up head was popped so fast and so memorably that it’s a memory and a key lesson I keep close to me at all times. He said – very STERNLY to me – “If I send you somewhere, it’s to do something FOR ME. Not for you to get your vain glory from. Do you understand? It is as MY SERVANT you go. I could just as easily use a DONKEY. You are NOT any better than the one I am choosing to use you to SERVE. DON’T GET IT MIXED UP IN YOUR HEAD.”
As rebukes go, that one was powerfully delivered and has not been forgotten for more than a decade. It’s still fresh. Still saving my life, after all “Pride comes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.” He has also helped me to remember this by ensuring that I have also gone through times of great need in so many ways. I have endured the bitter sting of ‘help’ delivered in pride. The person saying to themselves that after all ‘it’s their money that they worked hard for’ and having to take their help because God said, “take it as from me, forgive them.” Having to pray for them to learn that it all belongs to God, for myself to forgive and be more humble… and so on. I have also received help from those who do it from a place of honoring those who God has highlighted to them, not seeking glory or praise from men or from God for the gift given. It’s such a blessing to the heart to receive such.
It truly is the ‘blessing that makes rich and has no sorrows added.’ Rest assured, a gift given in pride speaks. But love? Love is not boastful or proud. And remember, wherever the feet can go, love can reach.
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