Don's Devotionals: Learning to love God

Proverbs 31:10-12       A wife of noble character who can find?  She is worth far more than rubies.  ¹¹ Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value.  ¹² She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.

I am the richest man in the world!  I have the Lord and He gave me Donna.  Engaged 2 hours and 15 minutes after we met!  Then 13 months and 1 day later our wedding – 42 years ago today!!  Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that I would be loved the way she loves me.  I never imagined how wonderful marriage could be.  It’s so incredible to be able to spend your life with the one person you would rather be with than anyone else.

When Donna smiles at me and I see the twinkle in her eyes, the thrill that goes through me is beyond words.  Even more amazing is the fact that our love not only hasn’t grown old – it’s gotten better with time.  We ‘get to’ spend every day of our lives loving one another, and we both understand that is a choice the Lord expects (and requires) us to make!  Right choices lead to blessing and wonder.  Wrong choices lead to pain, separation and becoming a statistic.

We both recognize that what the Lord has given us is priceless and our commitment to Him requires us both to guard and protect our marriage.  We do not have the option of indulging sinful behavior that undealt with, could damage what we have.  We know that one day we will give an account of how we have loved our spouse.

The grace of God, the enabling power of His Spirit and our commitment to His Word and to each other have enabled us to navigate the difficult times.  These were (and are) times when our actions and attitudes haven’t been what they should be.  The Lord has enabled us to recognize our sin and repent and ask forgiveness of one another.  We cannot overemphasize the importance of ‘I’m sorry’, ‘Please forgive me’, ‘I was wrong’, ‘I forgive
you’.

We are so grateful for the fact that we recognize that forgiveness is not optional.  It is an absolute requirement of our faith and so vital to our existence.  Best of all is the fact that we are committed to loving our God most of all.  Loving each other is part and parcel of
loving Him.

In fact, loving our spouse is a primary way we show our love for God.  The more we love Him, the more we love each other – the more our lives express love for each other.  He is the center of it all.  Thanks to Him our love and appreciation for each other is the best it’s ever been – with the best still to come!

Isaiah 7:14,15  Therefore the Lord himself will give youa sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. ¹⁵ He will eat curds and honey when he knows enough to reject the wrong and choose the right.

How do we know what is right or wrong?  What is good and what is evil?  What is our basis for identifying such things?  Such determinations don’t happen by accident or just come about naturally.  They require us to learn Scripture and learn to respond to the working of the Holy Spirit within us.  We become enabled to recognize and discern the truth no matter how convoluted the circumstances.

The world has its own idea about what is good and evil or what is right and wrong.  Are there circumstances that make it appropriate to lie?  How about situational ethics?  Sometimes it seems that the biggest evil to the world is Christians making any kind of judgment that something is evil or wrong.  We can become so accustomed to the world’s lies that we adopt behaviors that declare the Truth to be the forgery.  Isaiah addressed this problem when he wrote:

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,
who put darkness for light and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. (Isaiah 5:20)

Some things are so blatantly evil that you can’t miss them.  But that isn’t the general way the enemy of our soul attacks us.  He tries to blur the lines and induce Christians to walk in pathways that lead to temptation – that present unrighteousness in attractive packaging.  Just think of much of the commercial advertising and TV programming we are exposed to.  We become familiar with pathways that have his ‘forgeries’ presented as the norms of ‘good’ behavior.  His goal is to have us reach a point where we affirm the forgeries and reject the ‘original’.  Or where we succumb to societal pressures and tolerate his redefined ‘acceptable’ behaviors in our lives.

If we persist in the path of accurately identifying evil as evil and good as good, the enemy of our souls will try to move us to becoming overtly judgmental of others.  That can produce a prideful blindness that is repugnant to God.  Remember the Pharisees were so concerned with sin they missed Jesus.  But doing this the right way is our destiny and is included in learning to reject the wrong and choose the right.  God is our enabler.

The Scriptures are our standard.  They identify that ‘good and evil’ apply to behaviors, thoughts, attitudes – every area of our lives.  God wants us to walk in righteousness and it is imperative that we learn from Scripture what it is and isn’t, and His requirement to do it the right way.  We must recognize that with the Holy Spirit we can accurately reject the wrong and choose the right but it requires focus, intentionality and learning.  He expects no less of us.

Isaiah 12:5  Sing to the LORD, for he has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world.

We both arrived at the Christian Camp on Sunday that was held in Georgia.  Donna was from North Carolina and I was from Michigan.  We met and were engaged on Monday.  But the best was still to come.  The Lord had something scheduled for Donna on Tuesday afternoon that would change her forever – 43 years ago today.

Donna’s attendance at the camp was a last minute occurrence, just like it was for me.  She was invited by a college classmate to go with her to a “dumb old Christian camp” that her folks were making her go to.  The friend’s parents would pay her way to come.  Donna, on the other hand, was excited to come to the camp because God had been wooing her to Himself.

Donna had spent the previous two school years at St. Mary’s in Raleigh, NC – a private Episcopal Girl’s School.  She was there for her senior year of high school and her freshman year of college.  At St. Mary’s she found herself attracted by the Church’s Liturgy and enjoyed being an altar girl.  Both the morning service and Evening Prayers on Sunday were important to her.  She thought the sense of peace and the beauty of the services that she experienced there was as close as she could get to God.

Donna’s honest answer to my question regarding whether she was saved, revealed the fact that she was still in the process of being drawn to God.  In her short time at the camp she was already a bit confused by the way people talked about Jesus.  They spoke of Him as though He was actually there with them.  Donna believed in God but thought of Him as an ethereal being up there somewhere.  When she asked people why they spoke of Jesus in this way, they just smiled and said that she would find out, which did little to help.  Little did she know the miraculous vision that God would give her in order to reveal the Truth to her.

The following afternoon after we met and were engaged, Donna was in the little chapel for a meeting.  People were being prayed for after the talk and although she had been prayed for, nothing had happened for her as it had for the others in the room.  She was sitting in the front row of this small chapel and was too embarrassed to get up and walk out so she just sat there.  There was an empty life-size wooden cross hanging on the wall in the front of the chapel and as she sat there looking at it, God gave her a vision.

She saw Jesus nailed to the cross—so clearly that she felt that if she could have stood, she could have touched him.  As she looked on, she noticed blood dripping from His hands and feet.  Suddenly it was personally real to her that Jesus had died for her!  She began to weep and couldn’t stop as she realized that Jesus had loved her enough to die for her, not just “the world” but her, personally.  Later she recalled experiencing the feeling of being in a waterfall, only the waterfall was inside her rather than outside her.  Afterwards she says she felt scrubbed clean on the inside.  Nothing was the same again.  She was a different person.  Though she couldn’t articulate it clearly, she knew it was true!

Psalm17:7a  …the wonder of Your love….

Let’s think about some things that produce a sense of wonder within us.  In the spring I am so blessed by seeing everything begin to bloom after the winter season.  The redbuds and dogwood trees never cease to strike me with their beauty and color.  I love seeing the woods take on the hint of green with the coming of the first leaves.

One cannot escape a sense of wonder at the mountains.  Their size, beauty and majesty are awe inspiring.  One of my favorite memories is of salmon fishing with my dear friend Jon out in Seattle.  We were in the boat fishing before dawn on a clear morning.   In the midst of the darkness, we beheld the sight of the first rays of dawn reflecting off the snow capped peak of Mt Rainier.  It was absolutely breathtaking and its wonder caused us to sit and behold the dawning of the morning light.

The ocean and the seashore are particularly special to Donna and me.  One of the great joys of my life is to walk along the seashore listening to the surf – enjoying the sights, sounds and smells.  We both love to be in a hammock, on an ocean-front cottage porch, listening to the sounds and feeling the breeze as we read or simply rest.

It’s not just that these things are pleasant or enjoyable – but there is a sense of wonder within us that is present even just thinking about them.  And as great as all these things are, they pale in comparison to the wonder we experience over the love of our God for us.  It is a tangible sensation within us that produces such joy.

The wonder of our God is far beyond the simple fact that He made the things that bless us so.  He has shown us – and repeatedly shows us – His great love for us.  That is the stunner!  The God who made everything – the entire universe – loves us and makes Himself known to us!  Through Jesus, we are His family and dear to Him.  He enables us to experience the exquisite pleasure of Him becoming dear to us each and every day of our lives.  Oh, the wonder of it all!