Power filled positive thinking chapter 9-The Price God Paid to Be My Daddy Provides Me These 5 Blessed Traits
God demonstrated His love for me with such compassion and grace, why do I sometimes fear love? Why is it hard to constantly keep loving and providing for an elderly mother who has always been judgmental, trapped in her own world of negativism? It is so easy to love my children, their families, and my grandbabies. It is so easy to show love and compassion to my patients at work. It is so easy for me to even do random acts of kindness to strangers.
original photo courtesy of Lindsey Wood Barba
It is a matter of the heart, you see; and, that is where mine needs to grow just a little bit bigger. The only way for that to happen is to keep my eyes focused on my heavenly Father and remind myself that in Christ, God is my Daddy. The one I can fall before unashamed with my tears, my failures, and my fears. I can lay all else aside and trust His love for me to make it all better. He will and He will fill my heart with so much of His love that my heart will grow too. That is what He has promised.
Love is to lay your heart wide open, vulnerable and at any moment knowing that it can be crushed into pieces, by injury by sorrows, by rejection. Yet, I choose to love, knowing that I am vulnerable. Never to love causes a withering drying of the spirit and bones which is a form of death and hell itself. We were made in the image of God. God is perfect love and as my heavenly Father He chose to love me with the same powerful love that He loved His son. He did that even knowing that over and over again I would break His heart. Knowing that he would have to face the broken heartedness of watching His son die on the cross in order to save me and make me His child. This is perfect love that chose to suffer the
ridicule, the pain, and even rejection so as to give me His perfect Joy and His perfect love. You might try to say that if He loved us that much He should just save everyone and forget about righteousness. But you see He cannot because He is God and He is perfect righteousness; justice would never allow that. Beyond that He knows that you nor I would never understand the height, the breadth, nor the depth of His love were it not for the cross. He also knows that if our heart was never broken by love, we could never understand the sacrifice and the brokenness He endured in order to love us.
Did you ever consider the agonizing pain that God endured because He loved you and me? Did you ever think about how God’s heart must have ripped in shreds with each blow that the whips made on his son’s body? Did you ever think about how much pain He felt as the nails were driven into the feet and hands of His Son? How agonizing it must have been to turn His head away as our sin and guilt were laid upon His Innocent Son’s shoulders? He could have at any moment stopped the whole scene with one sweep of His Hand. He could have said done–I am not going to do this. Yet, He loved you and me so much that He endured that pain and Christ loved you and me so much that He willingly paid the price for you and for me. What manner of love is that? He chose to endure the most agonizing sorrow to be able to call me His child, to lavish His love on me and to share His eternal Joy with me. How can I ever doubt His love? How can I ever doubt His Sovereign Plan for my life? How can I ever moan about my circumstances? How can I ever be worried about my heart breaking when the comforter knows what heart break is? He who knows that to love means you must sacrifice your heart and be vulnerable is the very one who will repair my broken heart.
Knowing that God is my Daddy should result in my having these 5 traits overflowing in my life.
1. Love which can forgive anything and which so fills my heart it overflows.
2. Peace that rests in the strength of who God is.
3. Joy that causes my heart to sing even in the worst of storms.
4. Hope that allows me to see the good in every circumstance.
5. Faith that makes me fearless when trials come
Since I know that is true, why do I sometimes fear love or get so angry or hurt by mom? Oh, I can tell you exactly what happens. That happens when I forget who I am in Christ as God’s Chosen, Beloved Child. A voice deep inside, laughs and says; “Love you? How could God love you? Look at you!” That is when my response to my accuser must be, “Oh, yeah I know I am not perfect. In fact, I deserve death and hell; you are right. But God chose me, to love me and to make me His Child. Take one look at the cross of Christ and tell me my Daddy doesn’t love me. He loves me with an everlasting love and I am His Child—I will trust my Daddy today. So, Satan, go to where you belong and leave me alone.” When you do that all the guilt, the pain, and the anger will melt away. It will be replaced with love, peace and joy. You see most of our anger or sorrow does not come from what people have said or done to us; it comes from our fear that they are right. So, just like my Heavenly Daddy; I choose love. I know my He will be there to catch me every time I fall down.
Jesus prayed: John 17: 22And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: 23I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. 24 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.25 O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. 26And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
Listen to this song, “Remind Me who I am to You” by Jason Gray.
©2015 Effie Darlene Barba
Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.