But I Don’t Want to Act in a Loving Manner …

We are continuing through Paul Miller’s A Praying Life in our women’s study and I’m glad we are. My prayer life truly has changed throughout the course of our time together. I am definitely listening more to God and sharing more of my heart with Him as I go throughout my day. (The subtitle, “Connecting With God in a Distracting World” is a great one—very accurate.) Plus, I just know that if it weren’t for the study, I would never actually FINISH the book. (I start a lot of books but don’t finish all of them.)

In addition to the substance of the study, it’s also been good to be “forced” out of my home once a week to “really” connect with other women in genuine fellowship. Brief conversations before and after church are fine; ditto for small group time. But real conversations need more than just a couple of minutes and, even though I have to admit that my introvert tendencies still kick against the goad of getting “out there,” I’m always glad I did.

Still, I awoke this morning struggling about relationships and mostly just wanting to hide away. But I’m battling to stay engaged. I’m fighting for love. I’m praying for help to obey and GROW UP—because I know that my lack of love towards others reveals a problem in ME, not them.

A few reminders and encouragements from Bruce Milne (in his book, We Belong Together: The Meaning of Fellowship):

“Fellowship in the local church can be much harder going, so much so that some Christians, tragically, never really accept the challenge. But fellowship in the local church is the real thing to which Christ calls us to commit ourselves. Failure really to get involved in a local congregation after the somewhat artificial fellowship of our Christian peer group is often a judgment, not so much on the superficial and unspiritual church in question, as on the immaturity and spiritual adolescence of the Christian concerned.”

“The attaining of true fellowship in any Christian group is a costly business … A fellowship which costs nothing is almost invariably worth nothing.”

“One of the surest means of promoting love is to act in a loving manner.”

May God help me to act in a loving manner today! And may He actually cause me TO love, truly love, as well.

Blessings on your Thursday—

Yours,
Tara B.