Okay, so long story short, without going into too much detail, someone very close to me has made some choices that have caused great pain to me and those closest to me. I have been struggling for two weeks with their actions and how to respond. I have been praying and digging and searching and crying and praying and thinking and talking and trying to listen. I have not been acting, because I don’t believe I have been called to act just yet.
In the midst of this turmoil, God has been speaking to me about His commands. The “greatest” commands have come up more than once, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul and all your strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
It has echoed through my heart and mind since I heard the news of the wrong that has once again been done. I have feared what God thinks of me, and what my consequences will be, if I am unable to love this person as I love myself. I have struggled with how to show love to someone who has hurt me deeply, because I know that is the right thing, the thing I must do; even when I don’t want to. This isn’t the first time this has been an issue. Jesus asked the disciples to keep watch and pray. He told them in Matthew 26:41, “Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak!” He was telling the disciples to get ready, because they were going to be tempted and they needed to be watchful and prayerful, so that they would not be giving into sin.
While this echo was going on, Pastor preached this past week on a couple of verses in Deuteronomy, and handed out a covenant for us to sign and return back next week in the offering plate. He may as well have handed me a hot knife and told me to stick it directly into my heart. It hurt to even look at that covenant.
One thing you should know about me is that I NEVER sign anything without reading and agreeing to it. Literally. So signing the covenant wasn’t something that was going to be done in church and handed back in right away, anyway. And… here’s what the covenant says,
Today, I make a covenant with my community.
*I will choose life & prosperity
*I will love the Lord my God
*I will walk in obedience to Him
*I will keep His commands, decrees & laws
*I choose to live and increase and to receive the blessings of God
*I choose to trust in God and His leadership
So, I can choose life and prosperity with no issues. I can love the Lord my God. I can live and increase and receive the blessings of God, and I most definitely can trust in God and His leadership. Did you see the ones I skipped over? I will walk in obedience to Him, and I will keep His commands, decrees and laws. Yep. I have issues with those two. I am obviously a rebel. It’s not that I really want to be a rebel. I just don’t always do what God wants me to do. At least not right away. And then there’s that pesky situation I have with that person who I’m supposed to love, but can’t seem to figure out how to love.
Like I said, I’ve cried over this!
I couldn’t figure out how to sign this covenant, because I know that if I do not honor it, I am definitely, no-way-around-it sinning. If I sign this little piece of paper, and don’t live up to my end, I’m totally hurting my relationship with God, and that would be the polar opposite of what I want out of my life. Since I couldn’t figure out how to live up to the covenant, I tried to come up with a way to get out of signing it. I started crying just thinking about signing it. I got all sweaty and my heart started beating fast, and my mind raced. I felt like my days were numbered, and I didn’t know how to stop or even slow down the clock. I even sent a text to Pastor to ask for help with the covenant. Fortunately, I had a friend who was experiencing difficulty signing the covenant as well. By fortunately, I don’t mean for her, I mean for me. At least I wasn’t the only one with reservations and fear of failure. So we talked, and we mulled, and we pondered. Both of us had ideas, and so we sort of branched out and did our “own thing” to try to figure out how to honor God and sign the covenant!
My plan was to read the entire book of Deuteronomy, because I felt like I needed to know more. I needed to understand why these commands needed to be followed, and since Pastor chose Deuteronomy to pull the verses he was preaching from, I felt like that was the book I should be reading.
After reading the entire book in a day, I finally got to chapter 30, where I found the answer in verses 1-10:
“When all these things happen to you – the blessings and curses I have set before you – and you come to your senses while you are in all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey Him with all your heart and all your soul by doing everything I am giving you today, then He will restore your fortunes, have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. Even if your exiles are at the ends of the earth, He will gather you and bring you back from there. The Lord your God will bring you into the land your fathers possessed, and you will take possession of it. He will cause you to prosper and multiply you more than He did your fathers. The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love Him with all your heart and all your soul so that you will live. The Lord your God will put all these curses on your enemies who hate and persecute you. Then you will again obey Him and follow all His commands I am giving you today. The Lord your God will make you prosper abundantly in all the work of your hands with children, the offspring of your livestock, and your lands produce. indeed, the Lord will again delight in your prosperity as He delighted in that of your fathers, when you obey the Lord your God by keeping His commands and statutes that are written in this book of the law and return to Him with all your heart and all your soul.”
After reading this, and the entire book of Deuteronomy, I felt peace. I don’t know why, but I felt peace about the covenant, and loving that one person.
Here’s the deal… I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know how I’m going to honor God by keeping the covenant. I don’t know how I’m going to love someone I don’t understand. But I do know that God is perfect, and by His strength, I can do all things.
So, I’ve got my covenant in the back of my Bible, and I’m ready to sign it and put it in the plate this Sunday. I’m ALL in, ALL the way. Even the difficult stuff. Because God has been all in, all my life.
Momma Rich's 