The Love I Had at First

[marks]

Not feeling it? Wish you could feel the fire again? I hear you. I remember the fire. I got maybe a two-week "honeymoon" period, and then it was back to usual grind. Trying to recapture the fire ... I don't know how to do that. God knows, I've tried. But there's something to be said about being faithful and performing humble deeds of love, even when you're not feeling it.

This is one of the reasons I want to see how this thread plays out.

I recall to mind, God is here with me right now, and He loves me. No matter when, no matter what is happening, what I'm doing, what's being done to me. He is here now, He loves me, and He is actively involved in my life.

Much love!

 

[Aunty Jane]

My husband said something like this:

"You never get back the feeling you have at first, much like a marriage where the passion dies down over time. But you gain trust in God and stability. God is still at work in the path you ended up taking."

I think this is a good point of illustration.....but it needs a definition of “love”.
The Greek has four words to our one.....they differentiate between these four words....one means love of close family (storge)....another means love of our spiritual brothers and sisters (philea)...another is romantic love between husband and wife (eros)...but the main one is “agape”, which is love based on all the principles outlined in the Bible.

This is a love that is based on those principles and explains how we can “love” even our enemies. (Matt 5:43-44) It doesn’t have to elicit deep emotional feelings but can be expressed by withholding them. Not allowing anger to direct out actions....or hurt feelings to estrange us from our friends or family. It is governed by self control...a fruit of God’s spirit.

For a married couple, especially for Christians, the love we had for our mate at first (eros) subsides to a greater or lesser degree, but is replaced by something deeper and more meaningful...an abiding love that can still be romantic but now is stronger than just emotions......love for God and for his Christ moves us to carry his commands in our hearts so that they become second nature. It doesn’t mean that there will not be times of disagreement but it should alter how we handle them. (Eph 4:26-27)

Interestingly “eros” is not mentioned once in the Christian Scriptures...it is the least important to God but the most important in satan’s world where “love” and “lust” are mistaken for one another.

I might have been confusing excitement for love. When put that way, I believe I love Jesus more than in the past. I may have ended up going a different way but there's still opportunity every day to serve Him every day.

Nothing external can separate us from God.....
Rom 8:38-39....
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor governments nor things now here nor things to come nor powers 39  nor height nor depth nor any other creation will be able to separate us from God’s love that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We are the only ones who can separate ourselves from God....we pull away from him, but he will never pull away first. We have to alienate ourselves from him by our thinking and conduct....and his absence in our lives will manifest in our thinking and actions from then on, until we express a desire, like the prodigal son, to realize that the life we chose was pointless and harmful.....and wanting to come home to our Father, whose forgiveness is large.

I do believe the vocation of homemaking is Kingdom work. It just takes awhile to see fruit from it.

Psalm 127:3 tells us that our fruitage (children) is a reward from God. The ability to reproduce our own kind and raise them to be God’s children too, is a privilege as well as a responsibility.

But sadly, the fruitage is not always good, as God himself has experienced with the defection of his own children who were all once perfect, but who abused their free will in order to please themselves. There is no basis to forgive them as they were not saddled with a sinful nature like we are from an inheritance from our first earthly father, Adam. (Rom 5:12)

Our children too can be prodigals, their defection is heartbreaking, but when they return chastened and humbled, the hard lessons will carry them through their lives. Experience is the greatest teacher but it doesn’t have to be. Obedience to God can save us a lot of heartache.

The fruitage comes from the tree, and both good and bad fruit depend on what happens after they ‘ripen’.
I heard an illustration once that stuck with me.....an immature piece of fruit will ripen into a delicious treat, but left unattended it will simply go rotten. Like that piece of fruit, once we ripen we can become a treat to our Father, but if we remain in the bowl, (not moving forward in our Christian walk) not only will we go rotten, but any fruit that remains there with us, will also end up in the trash.
Good and bad company are also important as you mentioned in your college days. (1 Cor 15:33)

 

[Wynona]

I suspect ya'll have been praying.
I was on a car trip and
I remembered the Lord's mercy and kindness toward me that I did nothing to earn. I remembered all of it.
Thank you prayer people.