If I could pick anyone I wanted, who would I pick? What would be the attributes I would look for? What if I could choose the absolute perfect love story of all time? What would that look like??? Add chocolate to the situation and we have the perfect love story on Valentines Day.
I know, you saw this coming!! A love story with Jesus is the ultimate of experiences. Nothing comes close, nothing ever will. That relationship is always worth putting first. Our King of Kings.
It’s Valentine’s Day and I cannot help but to think of relationships. For me, getting out of the way and letting the Lord work in my life has improved my human relationships. Prioritizing the Lord first and then human relationships has grown me up a bit more.
Falling in love with Jesus, making time and energy for Him first and foremost has been the love story of my life. And it just keeps getting better.
Delayed Gratification
We just simply don’t get everything we want at the moment we want it. As I have learned about delayed gratification, I have settled into its sweetness. Mmm sweetness of chocolate. God has the perfect plan for our lives. The sweetest plan is His plan. It is worth waiting for.
God already knew what would be in our best interest and what would glorify him. Before we were born, He knew us. Waiting for God’s very best for our lives is worth waiting for.
When I moved past looking at my immediate needs for basic requirements in life, I saw abundance instead of desperation I once felt. When my thinking moved past the teaching of our society, I could see that scarcity can’t exist with God. We are children of God. He has more resources than we could ever conjure up. And since we are His children, He wants to lavish us with love and blessings.
It is worth delayed gratification for God’s best choice for us.
Reckless Abandon
Usually we think of reckless abandon as well… reckless, not advisable.
Yet when we apply reckless abandon to Jesus and our love story with Him, we receive more than we bargained for. When we can abandon ourselves and our lives and our love-life’s to the Lord, He will bless us.
Reckless abandon come in many forms and they will be different for all of us. Someone recently told me I had an abundance of confidence. At first I struggled with it being an insult or compliment. I desire to be humble, not arrogant. When it was explained that my confidence is just that, confidence in who I am, nothing more, nothing less. Hum, I am okay what that because all of my confidence is supposed to be in Jesus, not me.
I have come a long way. I am growing in my faith and in my character. It has been a dang long slow painful process with oodles left to do. Yet I can recognize that when everything fell apart (I mean everything) that is when my confidence increased. Completely backward. God is in charge of my life and will provide whatever He deems is His will. Nothing about me can change my circumstances. So yep, I am as confident as can be. My confidence is placed with God, not me, not man. It took a reckless abandonment to get there. Worth every ounce of growing pains.
Unwrapping Chocolates From Jesus
Jesus is everything. He gives us everything. He provides in abundance even when it is not obvious. He wraps His gifts perfectly in just the right wrappings. He knows which presents we need. He knows which chocolates fits our tastes. He knows which chocolates are unhealthy and which ones are truly pure.
God is our Creator, our Maker. He gave us our specific tastebuds. They are unique to us because our Creator has made us exactly that way, so we can be ourselves. It is perfectly okay that I love mint dark chocolate and don’t want to touch milk chocolate. When I was younger, I loved M&M’s. All the way up to my 40’s. Then all of a sudden the milk chocolate was like child’s milk, I wanted grown-up milk, dark chocolate. I also no longer needed bright sparkly colored candy coating. I needed and wanted something more pure in my love relationships. Tired of child’s candy!
My relationship with the Lord has come in layers of wrappings for me. Although He was ALL there for me since the beginning, I am slowly unwrapping the sweetness one wrapper at a time. This is a true love story that will last through eternity.
Most of all, Jesus already knows we need His presense more than any presents we could ever imagine.
How Do You Savor Your Chocolate?
We are all in different seasons of our lives. Different maturity levels. Different stages of chronic illness (this is after all supposed to be a blog for Christians who find themselves in chronic illness).
Wherever you find yourself today, how do YOU savor the chocolate that you have today?
Today is Valentine’s Day. My Valentine is my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I am savoring my Savior more than usual. He recently reminded me that He has greater gifts for me than I have ever imagined. He is allowing me to unwrap them one at a time these days, one right after the other. They are not small piddly presents, they are heart-throbbing stop-me-in-my-tracks gifts. I did not earn them. I do not deserve them. Yet He lavishes His love on me.
What is the Lord’s greatest gift? His presence, not presents. Only through a relationship with Him can we receive His presence, which is the greatest present of all.
Sharing is Caring
Fellow Christian blogger Rachel Anne Ridge writes for Going Beyond Ministries on occasion. If you know who Tony Evans is, you might know who his daughter is, Priscilla Shirer who has Going Beyond Ministries. If you have never been to one of Priscilla’s live events, I highly recommend it.
Anyway… Rachel wrote a fun chocolate Christian blog that is short and SWEET and all about Jesus.
The bottom line is, it’s ALWAYS time for chocolate (can I get an AMEN!)…and it’s ALWAYS time for worship, no matter how it’s unwrapped.
~ Going Beyond Ministries; Two Ways To Eat Chocolate by Rachel Anne Ridge