Copyright 2017 Theresa Harvard Johnson
Galatians 5:13a ESV, “For you were called to freedom, brothers.”
I do not know when it happened.
But one day recently, I woke up and realized I had a renewed trust in humanity, a greater capacity to love. My heart was so full of emotion that I sat in my bed weeping and writing – trying to capture this beautiful moment with Holy Spirit as my heart came alive.
It’s funny really.
You see, I did not realize my heart was STILL SERIOUSLY BOUND. Yet, there I was feeling tremendous love all around me…., experiencing great breaking and I desperately needed it. What is even crazier – at least for me – is that I could acknowledge my need freely before God in that moment and receive it.
I discovered, that even after all these years in Christ, that I still had a fortress so high around my heart that I was still subconsciously holding up walls, protecting myself. I was still struggling to trust and live in truth concerning where I was. Why or how that happened is not significant right now. What is important, however, is knowing that God wants our HEART’S FREE and he wants us to experience REAL LOVE – not just from an invisible supernatural place in our understanding. He wants us to touch it from a tangible place in the natural including God-appointed relationships. It’s okay to need and desire Christ-centered love. Were it not so, He would have stopped at marriage and not continued with demonstrating Jonathan’s love for David, Paul’s love for Timothy or John’s love for Christ. Mark 12:30-31 (the love God, love one another command) has renewed meaning for me this morning.
There are so many people in the earth who have never experienced love or who have never been loved correctly or at all by parents, caregivers, family, spouses or friends. We have a huge part in demonstrating this through Christ! We must SEE THAT or we have missed the point of our calling! Many people have stood unable to express love to others. They have moved through life… starving. I was one of them – but God’s people let HIM use them. You see, a lack of love creates a hunger deep within… that is far greater than any food and our lust for it gives us all the wrong ideas concerning how to fill that hunger, ease its desperate thirst.
