Love

Proverbs 3:3-8

3Let love and faithfulness never leave you;

bind them around your neck,

write them on the tablet of your heart.

4Then you will win favor and a good name

in the sight of God and man.

5Trust in the Lord with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

6in all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make your paths straight.^a

7Do not be wise in your own eyes;

fear the Lord and shun evil.

8This will bring health to your body

and nourishment to your bones. 

This little passage of scripture has stuck with me for a long time now. This is how I read and interpret it:

3&4: God is Love to us and He is faithful to us so that we can also love him and be faithful to Him. This is such an important truth to remember that the psalmist said to bind it around our necks!! I have the image of a neck tattoo in my mind; its so bold and unforgettable! (don't worry friends I'm not going to go out and get this tattooed on my neck ;). )  But you see the point of how important this is right?  1 John 4:19 says, "We love because he first loved us" (NIV).  This truth is applicable to both loving God as the KJV translates and to loving others as the NLT translates.  I like the NIV's translation because we can love PERIOD, because He first freely gave His Love to us.  This verse is a 2 way street where we meet God.  Winning favor has everything to do with how much we love.  Don't you enjoy being with people who genuinely love you?

5: sometimes trusting God can been down right scary because what He wants us to trust Him with might seem impossible (like Joshua and the battle of Jericho- He trusted God that the walls of the city would come down with a shout.  I wonder how many practical people thought He was nuts.  Trusting God may not always seem practical or easy or realistic; but we are not to lean on our own understanding.... God sees the Big Picture and only hindsight is 20/20 for us humans.

6&7: ask Him what to do and do it, and your path in life will be straight!  I'm picturing the alternative of rocky, hilly, windy roads; this is where disobedience lies and it is why so many of us feel like our entire lives are uphill.  My own wisdom will always take me down a painful path appart from God.  If I'd just stop trying to figure out everything on my own and acknowledge God he will take me exactly where I need to go.

8: Another translations says that these things will bring us satisfaction in Him.  Complete peace is in God which is where we'll be when we follow along with Him in these ways.  When I read health I think of  emotional and spiritual health, it probably has a lot to do with physical health too. 

Anyway, this is something I'm working on. 

*Receiving His Love

*Loving Him back

*Trusting Him

*Acknowledging Him

*becoming Healed & Nourished--resting in Satisfaction in Him

**Doesn't all this spell out Fully Relying on God? He wants all of each of us! My whole self, this is how to get there, but we have to open His Gift of Love FIRST.  That is step 1.  John 3:16, For God so Loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.  The rest of the list looks crazy and we can't really understand it if we haven't first received His Love personally.