I choose to love You!

I have an hour of quiet while Jerome and the boys are at the gym. I was walking around the house picking up with a line of a worship song stuck in my head. I started humming and singing it over and over. This is what it says:

I'll stand with arms high and heart abandon, in awe of the one Who gave it all.

I'll stand, my soul Lord, to You surrendered, all I am is Yours.

For whatever reason I haven't been in a tremendous 'feeling' season with the Lord. These times are destined but they are hard for me. I am an emotional person. Okay, maybe I am a REALLY emotional person. This used to get me into trouble...a lot. I used to be ruled by my emotions. Now, most of the time I am ruled by Christ.

During my quiet times I have not been greatly moved. I have been going through the motions feeling almost a bit of anxiety because I haven't 'felt' a strong sense of His Presence. Sort of like, "Am I doing something wrong...is He displeased with me in some way?" I have found it less inviting to spend alone time with Him.

I had some drive time by myself last Saturday. It was kind of a country drive and I was excited. I planned on turning the music off and just praying, connecting on an emotional level kind of praying, to the Lord. Still nothing...no warm, fuzzy feelings. I started to tell the Lord how hard this was for me...how much I loved Him and just wanted to feel His Presence...how much I wanted Him to speak to me.

OK...guess what happened...NOT KIDDING...at that moment I came up behind a truck that said AGAPE in giant letters across the tail gate. My mouth dropped. I knew this was the Lord. The Monday of last week my husband spoke to the teenaged girls about having AGAPE love for God. The love that we CHOOSE to have for Him. It is the strongest form of love and it happens to be the one that does not have a 'feeling' attached to it. It is a love of the will. There are other forms of the word love that have more feeling connected to it. Phileo has friendship feelings attached. Eros has sexual feelings attached.

Agape is a choice, not a feeling.

Once God made sure I had time to process this and make the connection, the truck turned. He spoke to me alright :)

I am not a spiritual super hero...nothing special about me. If you were to remove God's spirit you would find a selfish, not-so-nice girl. For the last 13 years I have made a choice to love Him with an agape love. I have chose to read my bible, listen to music that focuses my mind on who He is, to love people, to seek the forgiveness of others when I have sinned against them, to get back up when I fall and miss the mark, to praise Him in the midst of suffering, to obey when I don't 'feel' like it.

Even if the 'feelings' never come again I will still choose to love Him the best I can in this earthly body.

I will choose to do what the words of this song say:

I'll stand with arms high and heart abandon, in awe of the one Who gave it all.

I'll stand, my soul Lord, to You surrendered, all I am is Yours.