2016: Year of Abundance…

I haven’t blogged for a bit and am blogging now because jet lag is winning, for me and my two year old who is playing with trains at midnight while I type! Good parenting! I am jetlagged because we just got back from America and I haven’t blogged for over a month because I guess I have been a bit of a muddle with nothing sensible to say! Let’s see if tonight is the night to get back on the horse/computer..

End of November/December was hard, after my last blog Lion went back to hospital for more tests. It was hard for many different reasons. Through it I kept hearing in so many ways, through people, talks, instagram feeds..

‘God is good. Through all circumstances, God is good. Even if it doesn’t seem it, God is good’.

Yet through situations I was seeing and went through I was thinking, ‘He’s not being very good. I don’t see that in this He was good?’ Which is hard to feel about someone you love. It is very hard to love someone and know and trust that they are good-when stuff you see doesn’t indicate goodness from them.

So I had to take it up with Him. No point it staying in my heart and in little rants to my husband, talking behind His back (He sees it all anyway)-I had to ask Him.

‘Are you good, always?’

Lying in bed with a migraine, definitely due to pent up stress, He spoke.

“I am not ‘good’. I am LOVE. I am the depth, height, width, all consuming, surrounding, definition of LOVE. I am more than ‘good’. I am patient, I am kind. I do not envy, I do not boast, I am not proud. I do not dishonor others, I am not self-seeking, I am not easily angered, I keep no record of wrongs. I do not delight in evil but I rejoice with the truth. I always protect, always trust, always hope, always persevere.

I never fail!”

As clear as anything the verses of 1 Corinthians 13 were pouring over me. The deep truth of our perfect, powerful God. Who of course is good, but let’s not make it such a small word, lets not minimise Him to being ‘good’. He is peace and kindness and gentleness and strength and glory and truth. I know this verse and yet when it is revealed afresh I see how little I know the truth in it-we could sit all day pondering just that He ‘keeps no record of wrongs’..wow! Forgiveness is so powerful and such a blessing and yet how slow am I to give it out!? Then I could spend hours trying to really see that He always protects, He really does- He never fails!

In each of the situations I was looking at or in feeling that ‘is he good?’, I was belittling Him in the situation. I was making him as small as my idea of what He should have done or where He should be. Yet when I look afresh I can trust Him. I need to trust not only in his goodness but in His abounding LOVE for me.

In America we went to a church on the Sunday, Liberty Church Union Sq, my first church service in weeks. It was really nice to be welcomed in out of the snow to a hot chocolate and a warm room, plus Lion slept through so we both got to hear the preach which was a treat. The guy preaching started and it was 1 Corinthians 13! He was chatting from the point of view of earlier in the verse about how we can do all the ‘good things’ we want, we can preach/feed the poor/sing loud- yet it is all worthless if we do not LOVE.

Isn’t that a bit strong! It means nothing. NOTHING. If we do not Love.

Maybe that is why God wasn’t happy just to be ‘good’ as LOVE is the point, and so powerful.

He then told a little story that has stayed with me. When you are eating a meal, and your partner wants the first bite… Say it is a chocolate pudding you’ve been making. If my husband wants a first bite from my plate- it is painful, I’m like ‘noooo’.

It is so hard to give when you are hungry and empty yourself. Yet,when you are full, when you’ve eaten most of the pudding and there’s loads more left in the bowls of food filling the table-then you can share easily. Anyone can come over and eat, you can even give leftovers to the dog-it is easy to give when you are full.

It is the same with Love. To be trying to give and give and give when you are hungry and empty of love yourself, it is painful and tiring and won’t last long. Yet when you keep being fed yourself. When you are reminded of His Love for you, when you soak it in and eat your fill- the overflow, the stuff you don’t even know you’re feeding others with will be Love.

I tweaked that a bit as he only said a snippet yet I loved the concept, probably because I love food and so I SO got the feeling of being scared to share food when I am hungry yet totally happy to when I am full! God has really spoken to me personally through it.

I have been pretty empty. I have been relying on myself with no time for much else. I have been looking at what others are doing and feeling quite small. Yet I am claiming 2016 as the year of Abundance. Abundant blessings are here, are coming and I am claiming them. Not because of me, but because I am loved and out of an overflow I will bless others. I will pray for others and expect abundant blessing for them. I am claiming abundant blessing over you and your family-accept it and join me in expecting the fullness of God’s LOVE in 2016. It is so freeing and releasing and beautiful to know you are walking in abundance-and a much easier prayer than patience or trust! Join me in praying for abundant blessings over your friends & family, and anyone you pray for – speak abundant blessing over them! Speak the fullness of Love of them and yourself, get full!

If we do not Love we have nothing. I will not live a life that is but a resounding gong or clanging symbol, I will live 2016 aspiring to Love. When I fail, I will try again. I challenge you to join me.

JOY