God created us to love us, and when asked what the greatest commandment was, Christ responded that it was for us to love God back. He could have chosen to base His relationship with us on justice, or parental care, or even retribution. But significantly, He chose to love us.

Did you know there is nothing you can do that will cause God to love you any more than He already does? In fact, there is nothing you can do that will cause God to love you any less.

Said another way, God loves you as you are, not as you are supposed to be.

God does not love you in some poor, sympathetic, mousy way that feels pity for your sorry efforts to please Him. God loves you because He is love. It is His very nature to love to the nth degree of His capacity to love.

He loves you passionately, intensely, aggressively, and as Chesterton says, He loves you furiously. You are loved with all God possesses. You are loved from the depth and height and breadth of His character. You are loved in all the ways God’s infinite creative genius can conceive. You are loved beyond the value of anything God holds dear.

When God thinks of you He brings everything He is to the relationship at hand and only asks that you consider responding to His overtures.

Next: How is my life different—if I’m so loved by God?

He longed to know He was part of something besides Himself.

Stu Weber, the author, wonders if King David would have had his illicit affair with Bathsheba if his best friend Jonathan had been alive to help break his precipitous and ungraceful fall.

Moses took Aaron and Hur with him to the hill top when he surveyed Israel’s battle against Amalek.

Jesus sent the disciples out two-by-two, not one-by-one.

Evidently, God is serious about our encouraging each other, sharing together, and bearing one another’s burdens. He wants us to behave like a body: unified, self-sacrificing, accommodating, and caring.

He probably said it best when He said, “They will know you are My disciples if you have love for one another.”

It occurs to me that being a body and loving one another isn’t always the easiest thing in the world. Self-sacrifice sometimes requires a little patching up with salve and band aides, even in the body of Christ.

Just as God never intended for us to be isolated from Him, I think the Bible makes it clear: He doesn’t intend for us to be isolated from His body either.

While this might not always appear to be the most graceful arrangement, the fact remains: When we behave like the body of Christ we exhibit His grace as only loving Believers can. God says this will let others know we are His.

Well, I feel better now.

My tumble wasn’t simply to provide entertainment for the teen-age girls after all. It has become a graphic example of how we—the body of Christ—work together to reflect His life in us.

However, for your hand’s sake, I might suggest that you watch your step when being followed by a group of young girls on a field trip to the museum.

Brother Paul writes, “And the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’; or again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.”

Although in all honesty, upon landing in a heap, I think my head and hands both were saying to my feet, “Why did you do this to us?” But fundamentally, if my feet weren’t doing the best they could to get me back to the car, I would be writing to you from the museum where I fell instead of the house where I’m sitting.

Paul goes on to say, “God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. There are many members, but one body.” Or as my Dad used to say in his paraphrase, “Elbows are equal to eyeballs.”

Just as my face needed my hands when I fell, we need each other. God designed our bodies to work in a complimentary fashion, and He designed the body of Christ this way as well. We need each other, and sometimes we need each other in extraordinary ways.

That is part of the responsibility and privilege of being part of the body of Christ. That brings me to friendship and togetherness. More on that next.

It wasn’t icy, or wet, or dark. It was broad daylight.

No one pushed me, pulled me, or distracted me.

I had no excuse for falling down the steps. I just did.

I performed a series of end-over-ends until I reached the bottom step and landed in an ungraceful heap, all for no apparent reason. There was nothing to do but pick up the book my brother had just given me, stand up smiling sheepishly, and say, “Bad shoes! Bad, bad shoes!”

I looked quickly to see if I recognized any of the kids in the group, not knowing what I would do if I did, and headed for the parking lot along a flat—very flat—sidewalk. I didn’t hear any clanking sounds as I walked, so I assumed all critical functions were stable, although my hands were complaining vociferously about the beating they took to catch my body.

They had been occupied carrying the car keys and the new book my brother had given me and had no plans for breaking my body’s precipitous and rapid heap-style landing, but they did it anyway, and had the bloody abrasions to show for it. While my hands hurt like the dickens, they and I both were glad it was them and not my face.

More on that…next

As nearly as I can determine, they do not seem any more anxious about today’s cold than they were with yesterday’s relative warmth.

Below the window sill, in the flower bed, the pansies seem unaffected by the colder-than-normal temperatures enveloping North Texas. Their colors are as vibrant today as they were five weeks ago when the landlord planted them. They do not worry about God’s provision; they bloom where they are planted.

Isaiah wrote, “Say to those with anxious thoughts, ‘Take courage, fear not.’”

And I would add, consider the sparrows and the pansies. If you do so, they will bolster your courage and arm you against worry because they are tangible, simple testimonies that God is sufficient for them and will be for you as well.

Determining to believe God and not yield to worry is not synonymous with sticking your head in the sand. It is wise to assess the circumstances in your life and consider the challenges you may face.

Given the implications of our world today, this is an arduous and somewhat intense undertaking. Such is the nature of the problem.

Fretting, losing sleep, worrying, or yielding to anxiety does not help. Not only do these responses not add a single moment of comfort for you, they do not answer the challenges before you or take into consideration the promises of your Heavenly Father to care for you.

Plan, yes. Contemplate—consider, yes. Evaluation is appropriate. Worry, no. Be anxious, no. God’s consolations are before you.

The world may spin completely out of control, but it won’t kill the sparrow on your window sill, uproot the pansies in your flower bed, or diminish God’s determination to take care of you.

So, take courage.

The argument could be made that David did not face the ominous prospects we face—nuclear proliferation, dysfunctional government, riotous social change, disasters, mass murders, hyper-zealotry for religious fundamentalism. David didn’t worry about a nuclear North Korea. Does his Psalm apply today?

David didn’t have to sort through the rationale behind suicide bombers. But then again, David spent a fair bit of time running for his life and dodging hurled spears from Israel’s disgruntled and insecure monarch.

I think we all face the temptation to believe our concerns are the gravest of all time and that no one has ever faced the pressures we face. Of course, in our rational moments we know this is not the case, but the temptation persists nevertheless.

Our Heavenly Father knows the pervasiveness of this temptation and still inspired David to say, “Even in the face of multiplying anxieties, Your consolations—thoughts, comforting perspective, and encouragement—delight my soul.”

God is a great communicator. I gather He realized the verses above would be too abstract for folks like us in the thick of things. So, He provided illustrations. I’ve isolated two of them for my next blog.

The dictionary says worry is feeling undue care and anxiety, and while that is a good definition—after all, it made its way into the dictionary—who’s to say when feeling anxious becomes “undue”? Is carrying a little care okay?

While Dianne and I were on the road recently to visit family, we listened to one of Malcolm Smith’s messages. Malcolm says worry is fearing that God is not sufficient. I think he is onto something.

Although the Bible doesn’t talk much about worry, God does devote a number of verses in His Book to anxiety. Perhaps the most familiar is Paul’s exhortation, “Be anxious for nothing.”

Jesus delivered the Bible’s lengthiest and most compelling discussion on anxiety during his sermon on the mount: “Do not be anxious for your life, for what you will eat, what you will drink, or what you will wear. Consider the birds. Think about the flowers. Your Father watches over the birds, clothes the flowers, and cares more for you than He does for either birds or flowers. Why be anxious?”

Reading that makes any anxiety sound pointless.

That seems idealistic, doesn’t it? The fact is, we live in a fallen, tumultuous, and dangerous world. In fact, as I peruse the social media, and read columns and books, I’m struck by the opinions purporting that we live in the most terrible time in history.

Is that true? If it is, then we are the most pitiful people to ever live. Hmm.

I have some thoughts about this… but not before my next blog. I’m still trying to decide if I should worry or not.

So, I looked down and began reading.

“Do not let kindness and truth leave you. Bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight” (3:3-6).

First, I gained perspective about my standard: While still not being clear what to do, I realized I must never digress from kindness and truth. And based upon the text, this will be easier said than done; otherwise, why would it say “bind” and “write”?

Second, I was reminded that my perspective must be one of trusting the Lord and not one of depending on my own smarts. Regardless of what course of action I decide on, I must acknowledge Christ as my life.

And finally, I realized God would make my path straight. I like that.

I’m the type that likes to get on with it once a goal is established or a destination is declared. “Straight” is a good thing.

But by the same token, nowhere does the text imply that “straight” is synonymous with easy or expeditious. Curvy roads are curvy because they avoid the more challenging, more costly, more demanding route that is straight. Straight doesn’t go around; it goes up, down, through and over.

As though offering encouragement for the day, the chapter went ahead to say, “Do not be afraid of sudden fear, nor of the onslaught of the wicked when it comes; for the Lord will be your confidence, and will keep your foot from being caught” (25-26). Now those are good words for hurt feelings, as well as feelings that are uncertain about the burglar lurking in the neighborhood.

The police tell me they failed to apprehend the burglar.

If the status quo remains intact, I’ll hear the helicopter again in the night, the dog will remain curled up on her bed, and I’ll get another chance to review the thoughts from Proverbs I’ve shared with you in this blog.

While I have no hope of explaining the significance of the helicopter to the dog, I do have a choice about traveling a curvy road or a straight one.

Straight is a good thing.

Turns out there was a burglar a few streets over making his second attempt at forcible entry in ten days. Police cruisers patrolled the streets and the helicopter hovered over the neighborhood for half an hour.

The only one in our house who slept through the whole affair was the dog, which I don’t understand. I thought we had the dog for occasions such as this so our minds would be at ease and Dianne and I could sleep securely.

Standard routine at our house has the alarm clock sound at 4:45 AM, followed by one touch of the snooze. Then it is showers, breakfast, a few quiet moments, stretching, and a workout all in varying order depending on the day of the week and whether it is Di’s schedule or mine. The only critical variable is for the shower to follow the workout.

But this morning we both piled out with the alarm’s first declaration of morning. No sense lying in bed any longer, all except for the dog that is. She doesn’t pay any more attention to the morning alarm than she does to helicopters or burglars three streets over.

I stretched out to loosen up my cantankerous back and retreated to my chair in the TV room, threw a comforter over my lap, and opened to the third Proverb.

Even though I had spent the last hour of my sleep time listening for the ominous sounds of a burglar outside our house, my mind was primarily focused on yesterday. As the children’s book would describe it, it had been a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day.

I had been impugned and slighted. My feelings were hurt rather profoundly—and not for the first time—by a colleague and friend in another city.

I sat for a moment or two with my Bible in my lap wondering why the unpleasant event of yesterday transpired and what I should do about it, but I was no closer to understanding it or knowing what to do now than I had been after I hung up the phone fifteen hours earlier. So, I looked down and began reading.

“Do not let kindness and truth leave you. Bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight” (3:3-6).

He will make my paths straight. Hmm. More about that next time….

…There are actually six occurrences of the word “initiative.” Like the first five, the sixth also references Jesus’ initiative.

But after close examination, and after reading Jesus’ statements about being unable to do anything on His own initiative, I discovered in John 10:18 that He did do one thing of His own initiative.

Speaking of His life, Jesus said, “I lay it down on my own initiative.”

Jesus did commit one independent act. He laid down His own life. He goes on to say that He had authority to lay it down.

And you know what? I think our Father is waiting for us to execute this one act of independence as well. He does not intend to assume the initiative for taking our lives, but leaves that decision in our court.

So, following the example of our Older Brother, I think it is appropriate that we determine to lay our lives down—of our own initiative—offering them to our Father to do with them as He pleases.

And then, having laid our lives down, to make a commitment to live dependent lives, looking to Him, the author and finisher of our faith, as our resource in life.