Friday, June 23, 2006

Friday’s Wrap-Up

How quickly the week flies! It’s that time again, it’s Friday; time to take a pause and review the blessing of yet another week.

  • While life can be difficult, we find relief as we live between “a rock and a God place!” He is our Rock, we are not in this battle alone.
  • I will never, ever, NEVER again oversleep on a "Wednesday’s with Beth" morning! While I have received the discs I ordered through Life Today, they are not DVD’s—they are audio CD’s! Now, don’t get me wrong, I love hearing Beth Moore, but as I sat listening to Part Three of Loving a Difficult Person, I missed seeing her visual energy. However, I will share just a few of the Beth Moore-ism’s I listened to this morning! To love a difficult person, we must:
  1. Know and rely on God’s love for us. When we try to love with a natural love, we burn out. When we fill up with God’s agape love, we can love supernaturally.
  2. We must fill up our hearts with God’s love. Remember the canteen analogy? Are we daily dumping out the toxic water we fill our canteens up with and replacing them with God’s love?
  3. Learn to love with insight: “Hurt people….hurt people.” “Misery loves misery.” When we try to love the handicapped heart without God’s insight, it is as if we are expecting a person in a wheelchair to get out and jump around. It can’t be done. Consequently, we must rely on God for insight. Philippians 1: 9-11: “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.” When we struggle to love the unlovable, we must go to God for insight, discernment, and knowledge. While we can’t change them, however, we can deepen our understanding supernaturally.

    If you love a prodigal, this lesson is a valuable tool. So many times, we teeter between aiding and abetting (enabling) and helping. What’s the difference, we ask? How can we love our prodigals without hindering the lessons they must learn to return? Philippians 1:9-11 gives us the answer. Test each effort to help through the filter of God’s insight, His discernment and His knowledge! This allows us to love our prodigals with agape love: the love that is other centered, with only their best interest at heart. This, my friends, is a very fine distinction. For, when we love through natural abilities only, we miss the more powerful insights and knowledge; we sometimes get in God’s way of the work He is doing in the life of our prodigal. We want to be partners with Him, not stumbling blocks! As Beth reminds us, “We will never be more like our Father in Heaven than when we love the unlovable.”
  • There’s a kind of hush at my place today! My son is on day two of the med’s the Dr. prescribed. He is sleeping much better, his mind has decreased in it’s racing, and there is a calmness about him that hasn’t been present for awhile. Peace, peace, God’s peace! Psalm 29:11 “The LORD gives strength to his People; the LORD blesses his people with peace.” What a faithful God we serve! I am resting in His love and faithfulness.

    Wrapping up this pause in our week, I have been blessed! Your faithful visits, your compassionate comments and your prayer warrior hearts have truly been a blessing this week! Hence, the songs I find myself humming as I type! From my lips to God's ears:

He drew [us] up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set [our] feet upon a rock, making [our] steps secure. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.”

Psalm 40: 2-3


Have a great weekend! AND keep singing!




12 comments:

Karla said...

I am soaking up this post. Good lessons for me to keep in mind.
Thanks!
Have a good weekend.

Perri said...

Diane, I'm sorry that it didn't work out for your son in Orlando. I'm praying for you all.

Kristen said...

I'm so glad that he got some medicine that seems to be working!! Looking forward to seeing you soon! :-)

rena said...

You have a wonderful weekend too and thanks for the boast!

Anonymous said...

I loved this! Thanks so much for taking the time to share these with us.

Gardenia said...

Haven't been by your post for a while, but now am glad I stopped this a.m. I'm sitting here with tears running down my cheeks. Amazingly enough there was program on Tourettes on TV last night told from the children's view. It was thought provoking - and awesome in that these gifted, beautiful children have to fight such big dragons in life, one of the worst being how other people react to them. Whenever our children are wounded, the worst thing for us seems to be our love can't heal them, but it sure helps! But I think you are so awesome for your stand, your battling alongside your son and the help you give everyone else through your blog. Yes, the hardest thing is to let them find their paths through life....

Anonymous said...

Oh, thank you so much for sharing this Bible study...What wisdom!
I am glad to hear that your son is doing better.
Have a blessed weekend.

Dawn said...

Go back to Kristen's post and she linked the Metamorphosis poem from the work "anorexic." I just noticed that it doesn't show up very well. It's an amazing piece of writing. Hopefully she'll repost the whole thing instead of sending people with a link.

Dawn said...

I really need to spell check! Make that "word" anorexic - it's highlighted.

Darlene Schacht said...

Great wisdom in this post.

You're in the spotlight at the CWO blog today. The URL is:

www.christianwomenonline.net/blog.html

Danielle said...

Great post. Like Karla, I'm soaking it up. Having been to your blog in a while..I was missing a lot!

This post comes on a perfect day for me...I have someone in my life who is so tough to love...I just want to distance myself from this person...God is required. Your reminder is so timely. Thank you!

I am praying for you and your son as well, Diane. From one mom to another...

Brenda said...

Diane, You are such an inspiration to me. Thank you for sharing this Bible study. Wisdom we can all use, I'm sure.

Your son's return and the return of Dawn's son give me hope for the return of my daughter, and I'm rejoicing with you in each small victory. Yes, God is faithful to meet all of our needs, and I will continue to pray for you and your son.

Thank you for allowing God to use you to encourage us to keep on keeping on. What a blessing!