LuV iS a VeRb

As part of the program every Thursday we were required to take three hours, from 8-11am and have an XTAWG or an Extended Time Alone With God. This time was to be spent in God's word, in prayer, in meditation and just being still. As someone who struggles in her quiet times, this terrified me. The first Thursday came around and a lot of people were just so excited to get into the Word. I was smiling, trying to be excited but inwardly I was dreading the next three hours of my life. I did have a little bit of guidance from articles like "How to Spend a Day in Prayer" and "31 Ways to Praise" but I still wasn't thrilled about this whole XTAWG thing. After the first one, people would talk about what God had taught them or what verse he had laid on their heart. I remember coming up dry not feeling that I had any meaningful experiences during that time. I hoped that no one would ask me how my XTAWG was because i didn't want to have an unsatisfactory answer.

I didn't feel like I was experiencing God or capable of experiencing God the way my friends seemed to be and I was frustrated. I had also been struggling with feeling the love of God in my life for some time. I was even at the point of doubting my salvation, feeling like my heart was behind my head in that my head knew what the truth was but my heart lacked the same certainty. This scared me. This issue came up in one of my conversations with my team leader, Carolina. She asked me, "What do you think the signs are of someone whose heart has been changed by God?" I responded saying, "A repentant heart, a desire to be godly, confessing of Jesus as Lord and Savior, etc..." She asked me, "Do you have those desires? Are you willing to repent?" In tears I nodded yes. But again, this was only reassuring to my head. What about my heart?

I was doing my XTAWG outside and I was reading I Cor. 13 and the book of I John. (That's a lot talk about love by the way.) I paused for a moment and thought about how my friend Emily had gone in to work an hour early so I could get there at the time I had been scheduled to come in and I looked around me at the majesty of the mountains and the beauty of the earth around me and I remembered the work of Christ on the cross and I realized that God loves me. Pretty profound right? Ha! All these years of being a Christian, growing up being told that God loves me and this is my big revelation. Yes, God loves you, Kayla. I thought I knew that but something about that particular moment made me believe it, made me appreciate it.

God's love is not the love spoken of in love songs or the feeling of eternal bliss at the beginning of a marriage. God's love goes beyond that. It's something that we know we have by what God has done for us not by what we think we feel. Feelings are temporary and cannot be trusted. But God has shown his love for us through his Son, through the beauty of his creation and through other people. Love is not a feeling. Love is a choice, an action. Love is a verb! I challenge you this day to take the love that God has given you and to lavish it upon others. Love others extravagantly!

"God is love." I John 4:8

"Love is patient and kind. It does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all thing, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends." I Corinthians 13:4-7