Challenged to love

We all need love.  Many of us long to be loved and long to love.  Hollywood tries to define love, but most of the time, their perspective is far from the reality of what love really entails.

Love means dying.  Dying to self, dying to 'my way', and dying so that others may live.  Death is never pretty, nor is it easy.  Not too many people would sign up for love if they opened the dictionary and the definition read:  Love:  death to self and making choices to see others' needs met.

Anyone who has walked in loving relationships knows that the ooey-gooey pictures painted of love are not really, well, shall we say, real?!  Indeed, love is a many splendored thing, as the song goes, but we sometimes forget that love is a choice.  Sometimes that choice is painful and feels like the one doing the loving is somehow being cheated in the 'deal' we call relationship.  

That's the cost, though, for true love to grow.  Seeds are planted in soil, watered, and they break through the shell and become what they were intended to be.  So too with love.  It's a seed that has many factors working on it and seemingly against it, but when it blooms, it is beautiful.  Along the way, though, there are cuts, trimmings, and dry times.  In the end, however, the fruit of love is sweet and life-giving.  

Getting healthy!

HEALTH FACT: Learn to do stretching and exercises when you wake up. It boosts circulation and digestion, and eases back pain. http://ltl.is/QCEUi

Wisdom

A gem has dropped into our laps.  His name is Alan Lee, and he is an amazing teacher.  Each Wednesday night, we are blessed to participate in an outstanding learning experience with him.  Not only does he implement all facets of teaching strategies, but also the content, Hebrew and Torah, are being brought to life.  

In addition to his weekly teachings, he sends out daily e-mails of study and encouragement.  If you are interested in receiving his e-mails, leave a comment on this blog.  Here is a sampling of one of his recent e-mails:

One of my my most favorite statements of Paul's to not like very well is 2 Cor. 4:17 where he expresses our present challenges are just momentary and light affliction that we are currently going through in order to produce for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison! I don't know what his time frame is when he speaks of momentary, but when I think of some of my time frames it seems like a whole lot longer than 'momentary.' That’s the real problem, isn’t it?  Our present experience just seems so permanent.  We see heartache, persecution, disaster, despair and death and it just seems so permanent.  Hurricanes that tear lives to pieces in a day.  Wars that seem to never end.  Poverty perpetrated from generation to generation.  How in Yah's name can Paul even suggest that this is light, momentary affliction?  It doesn’t seem momentary to me.  All I have is seventy some years to deal with it and it feels very permanent.  Listen to me, God.  I just can’t hold my breath for seventy years and pretend that it will all be better in heaven.  Paul might have been able to keep his eyes fixed on the invisible reality behind the trauma of life, but I’m not so sure I can.

If we think that Paul was a stoic, blocking out the death and destruction of his world by staring toward the pearly gates, we are sorely mistaken.  Paul knew the hideous side of life far better than most of us.  How could he have such a different perspective when he rotted in prisons, was beaten black and blue, starved, tortured, insulted and ridiculed?

He chooses the word parautika.  An adverb to mean, “immediately, at this precise instant or what is happening right now.”  But here Paul gets creative.  Paul is a master linguist.  When he needs to express something that he just can’t find in the present vocabulary, he makes up his own words.  Here (and only here) he adds the definite article.  Literally – “the immediate, the present instant, the happening moment”.    Paul focuses our attention entirely on the second hand of the clock.  The world in the existing instant.  That’s where affliction resides.  In the next second of the clock.

All of my life resides in the next second of the clock!  That’s really all I have.  One second at a time.  Paul shines his linguistic light on this inescapable truth in order to demonstrate howtemporary it all is.  We never think of life as just one more second.  We focus our attention on much longer time spans.  My seventy years to make a mark.  My legacy.  My history.  It’s never just about one second.  Except for the logical truth that life is compressed into just one more second.  So, says Paul, throw that tiny, insignificant reality up against God’s everlastingeternity and then see what really counts.

Even in the worst of times, I can count seconds.  And no matter how many I count, they are miniscule compared to eternity.  “Just give me a second, Lord.  I’ll be right there”.  Yes, you will.

As I shared this evening at the Hebrew Lifestyle class, those of you who have Prophetic gifting are getting hit hard right now. Yahweh doesn't do anything unless He first reveals it to His prophets. Unfortunately, the "glamour" of the Prophetic leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to these momentary afflictions.

Hang in their gang! These Momentary and light afflictions are working for you a far more exceeding weight of glory.

Shalom,

Alan

This is sobering....

HEALTH FACT: By the year 2020 72% of American women will be overweight or obese. http://ltl.is/QCEUi