The past few days I have been waking up with songs of praise singing in my head. Often once I am fully awake and out of bed I don’t remember the songs for long. It is really nice to wake up to such encouraging words and with the feelings of love, hope and joy in my heart. Today’s song was repeating in my soul: Love the Lord, Your God, with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength.
The song is Love the Lord by Lincoln Brewster. It is based off of several scriptures that reflect on putting your all into loving God, everything you have in praise, worship and connecting in a deep relationship with your creator. So often my mind can be elsewhere while thinking about God or singing praise, it is important to have everything you have united and be fully present in that moment with God. When all of you is united, miraculous events can happen, healing, transformation and amazing love come from being fully one with God in all that you are.
Mark 12:30
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
This same verse is repeated in Deuteronomy 6:5. “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
Whenever I hear “When I get Where I’m Going” by Brad Paisley and Dolly Parton it makes me wonder and think about why we always wait to live fully without fear. Why won’t we love without fear every moment of the day?
What is it that makes us so afraid to live with our hearts wide open?
It costs nothing to love one another, it costs us nothing to love someone even if we do not know them. It seems as though as the years go by we become more and more disconnected from the world around us, from those around us.
What keeps us from reaching out to one another in love and friendship, even just to say hello and smile as we go by on the street?
This last week, Donald and I were out shopping at Publix in a rough neighborhood in Jacksonville and we smiled and said hello to a gentleman in the parking lot.I think it was the first time I was ever thanked for simply saying hello and smiling at someone.The gentleman said that was the nicest greeting he had gotten that day and that he could feel the joy spread from our smiles to his heart.
I often try to smile and say hello to everyone I meet, especially at work even though there are hundreds of people in my office. Somedays, it is a challenge just to hold my head up and say hello and smile, looking each person in the eye when it would be a lot easier to look down and keep walking. Yet the little effort it takes can mean the world to the other person, as they in turn may smile at you or someone else.
Why have we become so stingy with our love?
Especially with ourselves.
Take the time to love without fear, allow yourself the freedom to be a being of LOVE. It is the ultimate freedom to be filled with love and let it spill out to everyone around you without the fear of expecting anything in return. Once you start loving freely there is no end to the amount of love that comes to you, it is never ending. LOVE IS WHO WE ARE. LOVE is who I AM. LOVE is who You ARE.
Be filled with love, be filled with an open heart, be free of the fear that keeps you from reaching out to others you do not know and especially those who you DO know. Many times we stop reaching out to those we know due to some ego issue or another, holding onto some society rule that we have to act this way or that way. Act how your heart wants you to act, not how others want you to act.
Don’t wait for death or near death to let you be free to be who you are.
Don’t wait for where you are going to love without fear.
We always stand within the Light.
Never forget that you are filled with grace, hope and love. Always.
Nothing you have ever done can take that away from you – for that is who you are.
Here is another song that makes me reflect on my life and if I am living it true to myself or just following down the path of least resistance. There are things I have learned along the way that have made great changes and others that I am still not sure are good changes to my life.
Either way there is always change, every moment of every day ~ it continues on and on, whether we like the change or even see it. Sometimes the changes are so subtle in ourselves and others that we do not see the positive growth that has happened. Just like watching a new plant blossom and grow in spring, it is a slow process but all of a sudden you see a new bud form or a new leaf grow. You didn’t see all of the hard work that went into forming the bud or leaf before it came out into the open to be fully seen and realized.
I need to take the time to find a moment of grace for myself and others as we struggle with the creation of the buds within us, so many changes are occurring just beneath the surface waiting to pop forward and be realized in full light so they can sparkle and shine in the daylight. They just need a little love and care, watered with some tears and joy. Seeds don’t have to be told that they are seeds, they grow and change without worry or care, no one has to tell them they are beautiful to blossom into flowers, they just are. We don’t have to be told we are one with the divine; we just are. We don’t have to be told we are love for we are love. There is nothing we have to do but just be, be who we are, accept who we are and allow ourselves to blossom into the beautiful flowers that we are.
Plant the seeds within yourself and others, be the water and tender loving care to help those seeds blossom and grow.
The song is Change by Tracy Chapman. The lyrics lead you down a path to take stock and refocus on what you really want out of life. The lyric that seems to stick out a lot for me is “If you saw the face of God and Love, would you change?” Seeing the face of God and Love does not have to be difficult. God is all around us. Love is all around us. When you allow your heart to be open, your own love will help someone else see the Face of God and Love. When you allow yourself to receive love from others by being vulnerable, you will see the Face of God and Love.
~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~
Song: Change
By: Tracy Chapman
If you knew that you would die today If you saw the face of God and love Would you change? Would you change?
If you knew that love can’t break your heart When you’re down so low you cannot fall Would you change would you change?
How bad how good does it need to get? How many losses how much regret? What chain reaction What cause and effect Makes you turn around Makes you try to explain Makes you forgive and forget Makes you change Makes you change
If you knew that you couldn’t be alone Knowing right being wrong Would you change? Would you change? If you knew that you would find a truth That brings a pain that can’t be soothed Would you change would you change?
How bad how good does it need to get? How many losses how much regret? What chain reaction What cause and effect Makes you turn around Makes you try to explain Makes you forgive and forget Makes you change Makes you change
Are you so upright you can’t be bent if it comes to blows Are you so sure you won’t be crawling If not for the good why risk falling Why risk falling
If everything you think you know Makes your life unbearable Would you change? Would you change? If you’d broken every rule and vow And hard times come to bring you down Would you change? Would you change?
If you knew that you would die today If you saw the face of God and love Would you change? Would you change?
5- “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.”
6- Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7- With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
8 -Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
The above passage leads into one of my favorite hymns, “Here I am Lord”.I remember singing that hymn often in my childhood and feeling a call from God to do something more with my life and help soften the hard hearts of others in pain.Whenever I would sing the hymn, I could feel God opening my heart and sewing seeds of love and longing to help others to heal, to help bring God’s mercy and compassion to them so they would not have to be in so much pain.We each have a special purpose for our lives, a purpose that God calls out to you in a soft voice, saying “Whom shall I send? Who will do this special purpose for me?”Each of us on Earth has a special purpose, a unique quality that is all our own to help bring about love, peace and harmony for all of God’s creation.Let your heart be softened, let your mind be still and allow yourself to hear what God is saying to you, the small whisper of how you are good enough to do the work God has laid out for you.When you do the work God asks of you, you are never left alone.God will help guide you and provide a way for you to fulfill His request successfully.Remember, with God there is no failure, for He knows what you are capable of and has seen the results of the path you are taking and what you are creating for Him.So be not afraid, God goes before you always, lighting the way and filling your path with love.
21“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
22But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
23Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
24Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
The part of these verses that jumps out to me is where Martha said “If you had been here…” How many times do we say that to God?“If you had only been with me…”, “If you had answered this prayer…”, “If you would only…” then we would have the outcome that we choose rather than the outcome God chooses.
At moments in our lives, it may seem that God arrives too late to help, too late to change the outcome or too late to simply be with us.It may seem that God just forgot and didn’t bother to call and say He wasn’t going to be with you that day.
But, as we go onto read the rest of the verse, it reminds us that we need to have faith and believe that God will be with us and that He has already provided us with an eternal answer to our prayers.We live in God, God lives in us.We need to have faith that God is always there.One needs to ask God for help to be able to receive it.There is nothing that God will not help you with if you ask and it is of your highest good.
God is always walking by our side, though we may not always feel or hear God’s presence.We need to strengthen our faith so we can accept the love and promise that God will always be with us and uphold His promise as long as we keep our promise to always walk with Him.Walking with God is walking with an open heart and a willingness to follow where God leads.
If you have trouble seeing and hearing God around you, listen and sing along with the following song.Open the Eyes of My Heart by Paul Baloche is a wonderful song to help you open your heart and allow the connection between you and God to grow.
