Stirrings in My Heart - January 2014

I find that more and more, I still struggle with this whole concept of love. It’s not that I don’t know what love is, but I find it much more difficult to experience it sometimes in a physical sense. While I know that my parents and sisters would tell me that they love me, I find that I see and experience the love from my parents more easily and readily than I do the latter. Why exactly do I struggle with this? What is it with love that I have a hard time experiencing (feeling) it around me? It’s not like God is not with me, right? Then again, maybe I have forgotten to allow him to fully take over my heart. It’s been in pain before, and I feel confused about quite a few things: how can God love and accept me for being such a wreck? Why is it that I was born with Autism, and how will this be relatable with other people? It’s not easy to live through life where you’re around people who hurt you at times and often don’t forgive you. Oh, how there is such darkness in this dying world.

Life with God

What exactly does life with God look like? I think that it looks like a life where we are actually listening to God, and understanding that He wants to give us. I also came across this video on the web a few weeks back and thought that it would sum it up better than I could.

The Neighbourly, Spiritual Lifestyle

I find that some of the later chapters in More Ready Than You Realize have a focus on acceptance, exhortation and being neighbourly. I was discussing this with a friend earlier who agreed with this; it seems that God wants us to be showing love and acceptance to everyone, regardless of their status, appearance and behaviours. It isn't because God told us through the Bible that we should do it, but rather, it is because he loves everyone so much to die for them all that as his followers, we should also show this kind of love to everyone among us and beyond (after all, we're now able to love since God gave us his love).

Another big thing that I find is coming up a lot is this whole concept of prayer. It isn't just arising from this book in particular for me, but I am also reminded of passages from the Gospels, especially in Luke, where he writes that Jesus had disciplined himself spiritually through prayer. At one point, He was encouraging his disciples to pray during the night so that they would not fall into temptation. Prayer is very important in the life of a Christian. It allows us to personally connect with God without having to go to a priest (the "middle man" of the old covenant). Since we are living in the new covenant through Jesus, we are able to intercede, that is, come to God on our own behalf or on the behalf of others. It is through prayer and faith that we are able to do God's will for our lives, and help other individuals discover this truth for themselves.

I think that we need to be practicing prayer more, and that we should be more neighbourly with each other; what I mean is, we need to be practicing God's love for the nations. We should be going out into our communities and live our lives the way that Jesus would have lived them, encouraging each other as we move along. However, since God has given us free will, it is ultimately our choice as to whether or not we take on this neighbourly, spiritual lifestyle, a lifestyle that can be achieved through help and commitment to the Spirit.

I believe that we are still learning more about how this kind of lifestyle works in Mount Christian Fellowship at the Mount campus. We're all practicing to love and care for one another, praying and worshipping together, and going out to have spiritual conversations with other friends on campus. It's just so wonderful how God could use us in the university community, which extends itself to all of HRM. I'm really excited for the kinds of beautiful things that we'll get to do in the future.

Until next time,

Alex