LOVE always prevails..

LOVE always prevails. It silences me. It rebukes me. 

What a challenging, changing, shaping, and learning month it has been. My idea of loving people unconditionally has, for the most part, come true. But something happened that left my heart really empty I was almost groping in the dark for answers. 

I had never been exposed to wickedness, at least not directly. My meager brush with human wickedness was by all means understandable, forgivable, and forgettable, because I know that the wicked are yet to be called from darkness into God’s wonderful light (1 Peter 2:9). But I was unprepared to witness the wickedness of someone who knows the Lord. Although it was not meant for me directly, it affected me (and everyone around us) just the same.  

It was wicked by all accounts. And the more I listened to stories, the more I struggled to intercede for this person. I would cry and ask the Lord to lift the burden up. In my eagerness to be free of it, I unknowingly focused more on getting the facts that poured out, detailing the wickedness of her actions. I was a step away from giving up. I sinned against the Lord by faltering to labor for her in prayer (1 Samuel 12:23). 

What an enormous sin! Shouldn't I have asked the Lord for more strength to stand in the gap for her, instead of using my tongue to say words that didn't please my God at all? How naïve I was to forget my own wickedness when the Lord had not rescued me yet and made me His!   

It was wicked by all accounts, yes. But God reminded me that we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against the forces of darkness (Ephesians 6:12), forces that at times use and manipulate people to act in ways that lead to destruction. And if I, as His child, disobey to stand on her behalf, what right do I have to desire Christ-likeness? This is a much bigger heartache!

The Lord Jesus taught me that His kind of Love always prevails. No matter what wicked things someone may be doing, Christian or not, they all need God’s mercy and forgiveness. They all need someone to care enough to stand in the gap and pray unceasingly on their behalf, see them with God’s eyes, and extend the same grace that we have been given (2 Corinthians 9:14). Lord Jesus, continue to take ownership of my heart, my tongue, my ears, my everything. May You be seen as the Possessor of this life..