What Does it Mean to Be Hopelessly in Love?

Vocabulary changes once God enters into the conversation.

If you base every decision in your life upon what God would want you have a much higher responsibility to be thoughtful and serious about your decisions. I'm not just talking about the big, life-changing decisions like who to marry, or when/whether to have children, or if you should accept a job that will require you to relocate. I'm talking about every decision that will impact your day. Should I go to the gym? Should I go to the food bank and volunteer? Should I go to the organizational meeting for the new bible study? Well, if I go, I'll feel better and I'll be doing something good for my body/soul/world. The choice seems pretty easy, doesn't it? But then the phone rings and you decide to talk to your best friend for 30 minutes, and then you have to pick up a couple of things at the grocery store, and you really should pay some bills . . . Don't get me wrong! All of those are necessary, or at least important!

Speaking only for myself, all too often I allow the necessary and important things to interfere with the things I should be doing to keep in line with God's desire for my life. Any changes we intend to make in our lives require inviting God into the scenario. I do meditate day and night upon the words of God now. I had stopped doing so for few months, and I found myself in a pretty dark, scary place. I had for some inane reason decided I was going to take charge of my own life. I was going to do exactly-and only-what I wanted to do at any given point in time. Fortunately, God waited for me to realize the folly of my ways. He knows my abilities and limitations and doesn't hold them against me!

God designed me to write. I have written poetry and had an extremely active imagination as far back as I can remember - before I could even write, my mind was creating stories and I have always viewed the world from a storyteller's point of view. I am artistic in other ways too and they give me joy, but I don't long for the opportunities to be creative in other ways. I am inspired to create something sometimes, but I absolutely cannot help but write. A friend asked me some time ago how it felt to "need to write" and I struggled to explain it. I guess had I had my wits about me I would have reminded her (and myself) of the Holy Spirit and how God manifests God's self in each of us through the Spirit. My writing is truly spirit-inspired, because I could never use such powerful, power-filled words on my own.

They come from God and that is what I mean when I say vocabulary changes once God enters into the conversation. My ability to write is from God. I have made a choice to be a writer. I don't know if I'll ever get rich (that has never seemed to be in the cards for me!) I don't know if I'll ever reach who it is God intends for me to reach with my words. But I know this: He intends for me to write. He made me a writer to my core - and I am genetically predisposed as well as spiritually infused to write. So I have made a choice to abandon myself to God and leave my future, and that of my family, in His hands. I was encouraged by these from a devotional by Jon Walker at Purpose Driven Life ministries:

Hopelessly in love . . . The thing is - and this is what deflates all my excuses and rationalizations - abandoning myself to God is a choice. The only thing hindering me from a deep, deep abiding relationship with God is - me. It is my unwillingness to give up those things that distract me from God and my stubborn refusal to make time with God a priority in my life are also choices I choose.

My prayer today is that you fall hopelessly in love with God. And that you meditate on the book of His law day and night.