His answer is love.

Ann Voskamp, author of 1000 Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, is a farmer’s wife. She and her neighbors are living through a drought that is threatening their entire year’s work and income.

Standing in their yard overlooking their corn fields, watching clouds drop rain to the north, to the west, and to the south, she is shaken inside by worry. Her husband turns to her and says, “When you know your Father’s loving – what can you fear losing? He hears us. He loves us. He has us. So whatever happens, He’s good and we’re good.”

Ann writes, “We pray to the Lord knowing His answer is Love.”

 Please click there and read her words, soft and full and pure.

How many times did we as children say to a parent, “If you love me, you will do ___ for me.” (Let me go to the movies with my friends…give me that special thing for my birthday/Christmas…) 

How many times as adults do we think to ourselves, “If ___ really loves me, he/she would ___.”

How many times as children of God have we used these very words to Him?

Oh, we don’t actually say them, but we think them when we pray, asking for things.

“Lord, please, don’t let me lose my job,” when the pink slips are passed around.

“Oh, God, keep my car running until I can afford another.”

“Please, heal Aunt Dorothy of cancer.”

The words, “If You love me,” are not in the question, but they are in the expecting. They are in the air of the heart when the answer is not what we wanted.

I must not be good enough. I must not have enough faith. I must not be loved by God enough to get what I want – what I believe I need.

His answer is love. It always was. It always will be.

What can we fear losing if all our hearts are tied up in Him? He is the one thing we can never lose, as long as He is the one thing we desire.

Jer 29:13  And you shall seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

Heb 13:5-6  Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, "I will never leave you; I will never abandon you." Let us be bold, then, and say, "The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?"

Oh, how our hearts can go a-wandering after other loves!

Mat 6:31-33  Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, With what shall we be clothed? For the nations seek after all these things. For your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.

 

Our primary goal … shouldn’t it be to become, not to obtain?

Eph 4:13  This will continue until we are united by our faith and by our understanding of the Son of God. Then we will be mature, just as Christ is, and we will be completely like him.

So, let us become like Him who received the full cup, not turning away, even though it was not what He wanted.

Luk 22:42  saying, Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me. Yet not My will, but Yours be done.