Dream In Soul – Creativity for the Kingdom:

Usually I don’t pay attention to the latest in trending news and try to stay away from addressing sensitive topics as they directly involve individual people, but my heart hurt seeing some of the words people have written recently in social media and on blogs- some words that spoke judgement without offering hope, some words that spoke truth, written with conviction and faith but without love. I don’t have all the answers but wonder:

How would Jesus speak to each person in our world today, the ones we judge, the ones we don’t understand but we’re called to love no matter what we think – because that was us before His grace.

How might He speak to you? How might He approach you when you were drawing water at a well or jeering in a crowd with stones in your hands? I believe He would speak to your heart, truthfully yet personally.

When I look at the world, at people I encounter I try to do the best I can, imperfect as I am, to look through eyes of Love. We should stand in truth, not wavering faith but we’re missing the power to reach others without true love.

“What if I could speak all languages of humans and of angels? If I did not love others, I would be nothing more than a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”

If we as a body get serious and arise and shine to our purpose, we can become love and live it out, truly allowing people to see and encounter God’s love tangibly.

When we allow God’s Spirit to empower us to be love and share love supernaturally the world would be changed.

If Love is our view, our motivation and perspective, I wonder how then should I speak to others?

I believe it’s in compassion, in bold action and God’s supernatural power, engaging their hearts and giving hope for their hurts, truly caring for them, leading conversations, letting our hearts and words overflow with the deep well of life and love that lives in us.

This is a deep, passionate love I’ve encountered, a love that’s greater than anything I’ve ever experienced – Love that changed my life…

I would share my story.

How when I was lonely and depressed as a girl, looking for identity, bullied and feeling like a misfit in this world, I discovered that love and it was my lifeline that kept me from spiraling into emptiness and darkness.

When at times I feel hopeless and unworthy as a woman, when I don’t measure up to the standards of the world I realize that Love is not out to beat me up and throw me away, telling me that I’ve failed, but desiring so much to restore me, for me to accept His offer to become all He truly meant me to be.

This is the gift of this great Love that changed me…

This is Love that pursues, that sees pain and desires to heal it, that sees unfulfillment and is the answer to fulfill it, that gives identity, compassion and worth.

Like Paul I wish I could adequately describe just how much we are loved, so everyone could grasp how deep and wide, how long and high it goes, to know this love that surpasses intellectual knowledge!

This love was longing for me to rely on Him to live this life that He created, to look to Him who spoke the world into motion for my identity and not myself, because life without Him is without eternal purpose.

I discovered that His love was not impersonal, not just words on a page but deep living waters washing over me, constant communication surging through my heart and body, where I become more and more like His love, seeing everyone around me as loved.

Oh how I long for every person to discover this Love!

The more I look at the news the more I realize our time on Earth is like a flower that is here for a little while and fades away. We long for something to grasp onto, true beauty, an identity, a meaningful dream, a role to fill – a purpose.

YOLO, you only live once they say, but what if that once is forever? What if the identity, dreams and purpose we seek goes beyond our time on Earth – that after we leave this place we will be somewhere else forever and we realize the only thing that really mattered was Love.

I’ve found, and am continually finding, that God is the Love that I’m really after, the identity I am after, the hope and dream I seek after…

Jesus came and poured out love on the cross to save, not to condemn, to be a convicting light that illuminates the truth that without Him we’d perish, but to offer hope alongside it.

He reaches out His pierced hand to allow you to see how much you are loved, that the changes to fulfill our true identity happen on the inside, of our hearts, our spirits, that are forever. When we’re caught up in His love what this world calls success and identity fades away. We were made to love and be loved by God, to love others and to be love forever.

This love is more passionate that romantic love, deeper than the love a parent has for a child – these relationships are His designs and are reflections of the ultimate love He has for us.

In God’s love we can see beyond our flaws, our pain, ourselves. We find beauty, satisfaction, identity, intimacy – oh yes, this God of love created intimacy and longs for our spirits to be one with His.

He poured out His love to show us the depth of the relationship He longs to have with us – not one where He throws us away because we’ve missed the mark but dying for us to accept His free gift of eternal life.

From the beginning of time Love pursued us and the thousands of pages in the Bible from the first to the last chronicle the journey of God seeking us to restore us into relationship with Him. He lovingly sought out those imprisoned by darkness who by the blood of Jesus and their belief in Him could be restored to that deep, passionate, intimate relationship that we were meant for in the Garden of Eden.

How would I speak to others?

I would say you are loved.

You were created intricately, wonderfully, with purpose, in Love…

You are made to be loved. Even before you were born, when you were in your mother’s womb you were known, you’ve been loved.

You are designed to reflect Him. Before this world became darkened and we became burdened by false expectations we were meant for the simplicity and freedom of childlike faith and a close bond with a Father who created what’s good and asks us to trust Him to keep us safe.

He’s the God who pursues affectionately and says to His people: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness,” and “I know the plans I have for you…plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

He comforts our weariness with loving words: “If you are tired from carrying heavy burdens, come to me and I will give you rest. Take the yoke I give you. Put it on your shoulders and learn from me. I am gentle and humble, and you will find rest.”

He says to all who have cravings and who long for true fulfillment, “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

God loves you and His desire is for you to know Him, to be known by Him, to be transformed so deeply by His love so deep and true that nothing else matters than the intimate adventure of love you will have by passionately knowing Jesus and the God who created you, knows your thoughts, keeps count of every tear and every hair on your head.

“We don’t know everything, but then we will, just as God completely understands us. For now there are faith, hope, and love. But of these three, the greatest is love.”

Let’s be LOVE always…