No element of our lives need be separated from the gospel. Jesus, come to class with me. Be with me in every conversation, remind me that in every encounter I have the chance to love people in the way their heart yearns for. I can listen fully and attend to their needs and get to know their heart as you do. I can treat them as your sons and daughters. My giving lord has become uncheerful because I have lost sight of it as a way to be pulled deeper into your intimacy and pull others in too. How resistant my heart is to suffering for your name, when the disciples took great joy in such a thing. There is deep healing, Lord, in suffering with people. I am so overwhelmed by the problems of those around me but you are Immanuel, God with us. The greatest gift is not that you can take away our suffering but that you will experience the fullness of our suffering with us. And that is something all your disciples can do. We don't have to have money or solutions or answers. More than anything we all need someone to suffer and rejoice with us and that is what you call us to do with people. Just follow your lead.
Teach me Lord, what it means to sow bountifully and not sparingly. Saturate me with your love that I may sow seeds of your glory and deep love all throughout the day. I don't have to be afraid or concerned with the harvest of my sowing...you have met and will meet all my needs. In you, we will not run in vain. Jesus, every day I forget that you can and want to satisfy all my needs and everything my heart is asking for. In so many relationships I get frustrated because I want more encouragement or to see greater growth or to feel like I'm being pursued and I can just imagine you saying "Its me! I'm the one who wants to encourage you endlessly, I'm the one who knows you perfectly, I am the one who is passionately pursuing you..." and if I am fully and deeply satisfied by you then I can come into relationships without all these demands and without all this clinging and all this heart guarding and not need to be loved by people. Of course the crazy part is that when I am fully reliant on you and your love, I do find deep satisfaction and joy in the beautiful relationships you have for me here. What changes is not everyone else but my reception. I go from demanding more and more from everyone to being able to see the miraculous ways they are already loving me.
In 2 Corinthians 9, the chapter that has guided my prayer to you, it says that people will glorify God because of my submission flowing from my confession of you. How you could use me for something so beautiful is astounding in itself. Remind me love, that it is my submission and confession and not my works that will lead to people glorifying you.
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