Filling Cracks in the Heart

We're touring the District this week for the annual SDMI training event. This year, we have been enjoying the company and teaching of Pastor Hal and Debbi Perkins. They are passionate about and committed to making Christlike disciples who, in turn, also make disciples. This is the life to which we are called.

Hal and Debbi are parents of four grown children. Their parenting years started with a set of triplets and grew again with the birth of the fourth several years later. I love Debbi's account of the significant role Hal played in the life of their son David during a particularly difficult time. The video below tells that story, including the impact years later.

Careful to Love

"So be very careful to love the LORD your God" (Joshua 23:11).

Be careful to love. This is so different from our culture's view! So often love is proclaimed as something that just happens, something to celebrate while it lasts and to mourn when whatever happens that causes the magical bits to go away. Genuine love, though, is a decision which results in action. It is nurtured and, by the grace of God, it grows. Deep, lasting, genuine love does not just happen. We must be careful to love.

Mark and I are privileged to have families who are careful to love. My parents, for example, are quite different from each other. They have different personalities, different perspectives, different styles. But each chooses to honor the other, to respect those differences and see them as completing rather than competing within their marriage. They are committed to each other. They are careful to love.

As love for each other is nurtured by commitment and action, so is love for God. When we choose to engage in actions which strengthen such love, Christianity calls it "spiritual disciplines." We are careful to love God when we choose to celebrate His goodness, rely on Him in prayer, engage in service for His kingdom, read His story and share His character with the people around us.

Joshua was an experienced and influential leader. He couldn't know all the details of what they would encounter in coming years, but he'd seen enough to realize the temptations involved. He recognized that God had chosen them for relationship, not just religion.

We don't know what we'll encounter in the coming year, or even in the next twenty minutes, but we do know our human tendency to wander. I want to be careful to love, knowing that my commitment to God can stand strong, and God's commitment to me will never fail.