I am so filled with gratitude and joy this morning… all I can do is cry out, thank You, thank You, thank You, thank You, thank You!
Thank you for reading, loving, dreaming, sharing, praying and so many other wonderful things full of good that you do!
Sending out prayers full of love and dreams of Our Best Life!
– Luke 14:26
I have been thinking about this passage for the last few weeks. After I wrote the blog Was it really just about the apple?, someone emailed me with the above passage and a comment. Their comment was, “Does this say that if Adam disobeyed God to save Eve, he loved Eve more than God?”
Obviously I was just speculating a “What if… ” situation in my post and this isn’t what actually happened in the Bible, but if it had we still would not have known what was in Adam’s heart as he willingly or unwillingly took the fall with Eve.
Even with Luke 14:26 in mind, I still think God would have been most pleased with Adam if he willingly chose to take the fall with Eve, with great sorrow in his heart knowing he would be separated from God, but still took the fall as a declaration of love for Eve and an unwillingness to let her fall alone and an unwillingness to be separated from his partner, the bone of his bone, the flesh of his flesh. Wouldn’t this have shown true faith in God’s goodness as well as courage to risk separation from God out of love and protection for another child of God?
I don’t think that Luke 14:26 is stating that Jesus wants us to hate our father, mother, wife/husband, children, brothers, sisters and even ourselves to be His disciple.
I think what is being stated here is that as our love for Jesus grows, our interests change and we begin to see the bigger picture. We begin to be filled by Jesus alone and understand that being filled with Jesus allows us to love not only our family more, but allows us to love the entire world. We begin to desire nothing more than constant contemplation of Jesus as a way to keep loving everyone through Jesus.
Who is it then that would interrupt this constant contemplation? Our families, they are the ones that require the most attention from us and need the most time. As imperfect humans we are always like demanding little children regardless of our ages and we still want what we want and dislike our peace and our thoughts being interrupted. Therefore I think these constant interruptions of peace and contemplation of Jesus are the frustrations that could bring about the hate Jesus talks about in Luke 14:26.
Jesus please help us see another way to constantly join in the worship and contemplation of You as well as meet the needs and demands of our families, the ones who You have blessed us with to love, serve and care for during our time here.
It is Our Best Life… the path is there even if we can’t see it!
I haven’t always been a runner, but I have started running lately since I really haven’t felt like joining a gym and I live in a place with beautiful weather.
I am not really an outgoing person and some of my favorite days and nights are just sitting home with my family playing, working on my projects, listening to some music, or watching a good movie. However I do need people and I have noticed that when I run if someone waves at me or smiles I get a jolt for a few min and forget that I was tired or out of breath and run with renewed strength.
After noticing this I have started waving at everyone I run by (drivers, runners, walkers) and for the runners and walkers I take the extra step of taking off my headphones to say good morning as I run by. This morning one of the walkers I said good morning to, waved back and said, “Good morning my friend!”. He is living Our Best Life even if he doesn’t call it this and I was overjoyed to meet him if only for a moment!
Jesus thank you for my new friend! Please help me be a friend to everyone I encounter just as you are a friend to all of us!
My friends, It is Our Best life… someday we will all be friends!
I was cleaning some raspberries this afternoon that I had left in the refrigerator 2 days too long. As I was cleaning them I had to throw away parts of some that had gone bad, but in the end all of them had at least one bead of fruit that was still good.
While I was doing this I was thinking about a documentary I watched last night that discussed the wicked and quoted Daniel 12:10, “… None of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand”.
I started wondering who is wicked?
The definitions I found for wicked are below
If someone is considered to be wicked or evil, but this person does not know better due to abuse, neglect, a lack of education, a terrible upbringing can we still consider this person to be wicked or evil? I think their acts can be considered evil and wicked, but are they really evil to the core?
What if I had experienced the same abuse, neglect, difficult upbringing and poor or lack of education? Maybe I would be doing even worse things than the person who did experience this childhood? Maybe I wasn’t exposed to this because the potential I had for acts of evil was even greater than the person who was exposed to this in reality? Maybe I would have been lost forever?
I don’t believe that anyone is wicked or evil to the core. I believe we all still have at least one bead of good still inside. I think Jesus wants ALL of us, down to the very last good bead!
I think Jesus may be protecting those with a weakness for performing wicked and evil acts through ignorance. This puts a very heavy burden on those who are given knowledge and understanding.
Jesus please help us to see the beads of good in everyone, and help us to use any knowledge and understanding that you have blessed us with ONLY for Your Glory and Your Good!
I just heard the song I Believe by Chris August! This is the first time I have heard it and I love it and wanted to share it with you!
At one point in the song he sings…
If you had some heartache that made you cry a thousand tears
Then let me tell you now I know just how you feel
When I heard this I thought, I have never experienced this heartache and would not be able to tell someone that I know how they feel, but I then thought of a dear friend who has experienced this heartache. I had this image for a moment of how treasured, loved and special she is and that we are so blessed that Jesus has been carrying her through these difficult times.
I believe and carry a hope in my heart that she is nearing the end of these trials. Every now and then I think I see Jesus put her down for a day or two so that she can begin taking her baby steps while still holding His hand.
Thank you Jesus for loving my dear, sweet friend so much and carrying her through so many difficult times!
I believe it is Our Best Life!
My youngest daughter now goes to school two days a week. A few weeks ago as I was driving home from dropping everyone off at school I was listing all of the things I wanted to get done in my head and all of the sudden I decided to push everything back by 45 min and I started looking for a place to get a pedicure. Just down the street from my house I drove by a place with it’s doors wide open. I walked in and although they didn’t open until 9 am, the pedicurist said she would be happy to take me early.
The pedicure was awesome! I have very dry and rough feet and I was so thankful to have someone else scrub them down. As I was sitting there feeling blessed, I thought of Jesus washing our feet and what a blessing it was that this woman chose to wash my feet as her profession. For the rest of the pedicure I thought about how much I loved this woman! I am so thankful to have glimpsed Jesus in her that morning.
Thank you Jesus and Sydney for washing my feet! Jesus please help me to open my eyes to see You in everyone and to see the opportunities You set before me everyday to serve You and wash Your feet.
It’s Our Best Life… Believe it, Live it and it will be!
I am reading The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. Today I read chapter 3, The Man Who Loves Peace, and I want to share a bit of it with you and a few thoughts I had while reading.
Thomas a Kempis wrote
The good and peace-loving man turns everything into good. The man who dwells in perfect peace suspects evil of no one.
The man of blind passion even turns good into evil and is quick to believe evil of others. The man who is discontented and disgruntled has a heart filled with suspicion.
I want peace! How do we teach/learn peace? Is it being taught? I am honestly asking and would love your thoughts.
Does finding peace lead one to believe that everything is good?
Or
Are peace and believing everything is good equivalent, meaning that once you believe everything is good then you have also found peace and vice versa once you have found peace then you believe everything is good?
If the latter is correct, then seeing/finding the good in everything should lead us to peace. This seems like a great place to start if you are looking for peace!
I know I am not the first to say this, but I think
Jesus said in John 14:27
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
Let us reclaim the PEACE Jesus has left with us, the PEACE He has given to us. Let us live with untroubled hearts and let us live fearlessly!
My friends, I wish you peace from the bottom of my heart! Let us live Our Best Life in Peace!
I watched the PBS documentary, The Mystery of Love, this evening.
At one point the documentary was discussing loving the whole world and it was mentioned that the Buddhists all say that during their wedding ceremonies the bride and the groom should marry the whole world, through this one person, and that rabbis have a similar expression that the whole world is a huppa or the whole world is a wedding canopy.
On the morning of his wedding, Ketsu Norman Fisher, a Zen master wrote this poem.
Of all the women in all the world
Delicate in their various encasings of body, of mind;
This one, bent asleep before me, in the bed,
Is the one through whom all must be loved,
As I have promised.
I thought this was beautiful and I had this moment of truly feeling loved and honored by this man who I have never met, but knows that I am delicate. What a blessing!!!
In Our Best Life I know that I truly love all of you and since I want to live Our Best Life now, I am going to begin intentionally trying to love the whole world! I pray to be able to truly love everyone who is put in my path and I pray to send YOU my love by loving everyone who is put in my path.
Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself. It is Our Best Life, let’s LIVE it!
My girls love rainbows! They talk about them a lot and love to color rainbows. I have always loved rainbows too, and have always loved to stop and look around for a rainbow at the end of a storm.
My girls love to look for rainbows too, but they don’t just look for them at the end of a storm. They are always looking for rainbows on sunny days, overcast days, rainy days, snowy days and the amazing thing is that they almost always find one regardless of the weather! They found the rainbow on the back of a CD/DVD, they found the rainbow on the blank TV screen caused by the sun reflecting off of it at a certain angle, and today we were on a boat and they found the rainbow caused by the sun reflecting through the water spray along the sides of the boat as it sped through the lake.
The more rainbows they have shown to me, the more I have begun to wonder if my girls really see what I see when we look at the world? At the park when I hold their hands and tell them to step over a log, do they see the brown log that I see or do they see something else? I am starting to think that we see things very differently and I want to see their world, I want to jump over a rainbow, see magic caterpillars, and see the Care Bears peeking down from the clouds.
I think children truly see with the eyes of love! I want to take off my dark and dingy glasses and see with the eyes of love too and I think listening to what my girls see rather than telling them what I see is a good place to start!
Look for a rainbow in an unexpected place and I bet you will find it because it is Our Best Life!!! My friend, I wish you true joy in your heart when you find your hidden rainbow today!
My husband went for a run the other day and when he came back he was literally dripping with sweat and he asked me if he smelled bad. I leaned in, took a big whiff and honestly I thought he smelled nice and I said “You smell good to me”. He smiled and said it didn’t count because I see him with the eyes of love.
I was thinking of this today and thinking that seeing someone through the eyes of love is more true and real than any other way to see someone. I think it should always count and be the only opinion that counts! Maybe I was the only person on earth at that moment that didn’t think my husband smelled, but maybe I was also the only person in the world who could really smell him.
Doesn’t God look at us with the eyes of love? Isn’t this how he is able to constantly forgive and forget everything we do to ourselves and each other? Does this make it okay to live life with our rose colored glasses on all of the time? Does this make it okay to try to see the good in everything?
Maybe there are no rose colored glasses. Maybe instead there are dark and dingy glasses that block us from seeing with the eyes of love if we refuse to take them off.
I feel like at times constant optimism can hurt the ones we love if they are suffering or going through a very difficult time, but maybe it isn’t constant optimism. Maybe the dark and dingy glasses are off and saying “It is going to be okay” or “You are going to be okay” is not a lie or a hollow consolation, but more real and true than our loved one can yet see.
Jesus said, “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
If we really are wearing dark and dingy glasses maybe a good way to start trying to remove them is by literally saying out loud “It is Our Best Life” everyday.
Let’s take off our glasses and start seeing everyone with the eyes of love!