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SEPERATED FROM GOD

04 Friday Jul 2014

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Ever have one of those days where you feel you are nowhere close to being worthy to be called a child of God?  Where you’re tired of trying to tell people about Jesus when you know they could not possibly care less?  When you want to give up on serving Him and just lounge in His love?  When you want God to be there for you but you don’t feel like being there for Him?  I had a few of those days about a week ago.

 Andrew Murray:  This is the spirit of the world:  to seek one’s self and the visible (John 5:44). 

I just decided for one day I was going to do whatever I wanted to do.  I felt too tired to even try to speak of God to anyone.  I didn’t feel led to read His Word.  I said some off-hand prayers but they were only seeking God’s approval for how I had decided to spend my day.  I didn’t wait for any kind of an answer from Him.  I did feel Him gently trying to lead me away from this self-obsession; felt Him thumping my noggin several times trying to draw me nearer to Him so He could adjust my attitude.  But I kept justifying my desire for the day to just be about me.  “I deserve one day.”  And that’s how I spent the day – diverting others so I could stick to my plan.  I thought I could hide out in the pool just lying there. For one day it couldn’t hurt, right?  Each time someone asked me to do something, I found a way out of it if it didn’t fit in with my plan for the day.  I indulged myself, giving myself first priority over everything that came up. 

 Who could I hurt if I just checked out for a day?  Well, I messed up a really big opportunity to bring a couple of people nearer to God.  I missed some good witnessing opportunities.  I hurt God.  I grieved the Spirit.  I didn’t worship God as He deserves. I felt the pain of being separated from God. 

 As the week progressed and I was in a better place the thought occurred to me that Jesus never said “Ya know I’m just going to take a day for myself.  The lepers and possessed and sick and lost can just wait a day while I pamper myself.”  Jesus didn’t go to a spa, lounge on the beach, or play a round of golf to refresh Himself.  He did take time to be alone but He spent the time with His Father, praying; He spent entire nights praying to God.

Luke 6:12 (NKJV) – “Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.”

The need to focus and aggressively nurture my relationship with God last week gave me the chance to experience how spending time with Him does so much more for my soul than spending a day absorbed in myself.  I remember thinking “It’s just one day.  I deserve it.”  But it did nothing to rejuvenate me.  And I certainly don’t “deserve” it.  Without Jesus I am a wretched sinner.  I could live in a place on earth where a day of rest is not possible. Am I better than those who live in such a place that God would allow me to indulge myself in such a way?  I deserve nothing.  If God blesses me with a “free” day, it is shameful that I even thought of moving away from Him to experience the blessing.  The realization that I did this sickens me.

 2 Corinthians 12:9 – “I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” 

 I know that feeling tired in my walk with Jesus is going to happen but I must also remember that it is a tool Satan can use to pull me away and thwart my work for Jesus.  I cannot have a day off from living for Christ because I must always be looking for opportunities to share His Good News and to be His hands and feet.  While I can have a day of doing nothing but meditating on Him I cannot go a single day without spending time with Him and keeping the needs of His Kingdom first and foremost.  Scripture tells us that Satan is a formidable foe and we must not underestimate him.  But Satan won on that particular day and his victory did not go unnoticed.  It is a consequence I do not want to experience again anytime soon. I wish I could communicate to my unsaved friends and family how wretched it feels being separated from God once we know Him and how much He loves us.  I want them to know it brings misery that is beyond description and it is not something they will want to feel for eternity.

2 Corinthians 5:17 – “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

The old Carolyn paid a visit that day and I didn’t much care for her.  Since that day it has been very clear to me that God didn’t just repair me when I committed my life to Him: He truly did make a new creation.  God used the day to help me see how far I’ve come and how dark the world truly is without Him. I wonder how I lived so long in the darkness but clearly understand why I spent so much time depressed, lost and feeling so hopeless. 

D. James Kennedy:  “You cannot say, ‘No, Lord,’ and mean both words; one annuls the other.  If you say no to Him, then He is not your Lord.” 

God has used that day to refine me in two ways.  He began to lay on my heart what He wants my life to look like.  Still not fully recovered from “battle fatigue,” I responded with a flat out “no.”  No, I wasn’t ready to do the things He was showing me.  No, sadly, I don’t think I’m capable of living like that.  No, it just makes me too tired to even think about it.  Pre-occupied with myself, I let God know that I didn’t think my walk with Him could ever look like what He was showing me.  But as I call on the Spirit’s power rather than my own, I know I can do what God is calling me to do. 

 Psalm 132:13, 14 – “This is my rest, here will I dwell.”

 God also reminded me of the need to devote one day to Him – a Sabbath Day.  As a Christian, we generally think of Sunday as the day to devote to God, but I find I don’t truly devote the day to Him.  I go to church then the day continues as any other day.  I do household chores, shop, run errands.  If it is truly a Sabbath for me, it should look different than any other day.  Andrew Murray, in his book The New Life says:  “Keep it very holy.  And, above all, let it be a day of inner fellowship with your God….  …There is no better day than the Lord’s day for doing good to body and soul….”  I suspect if I were to observe one day as a true Sabbath, I won’t feel the fatigue I encountered last week.  I don’t want to go backwards in my Christian walk; I want always to be strengthening my faith, always moving forward.  God’s example is for one day out of seven to be a day of rest and as I obey Him in this, I will be better able to live every single day of my life serving Him in the best way possible.

2 Peter 1:4 – “…having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.”

 I have escaped the world and after spending one day back in it, I know I don’t want to ever go back.  But, as I’m fond of saying, “Me is a hard habit to break.”  I now know that I must watch for an attack when I’m feeling tired, and draw closer to God instead of pulling away from Him.  I found this prayer from Andrew Murray (The New Life) and I ask it of God every day: 

 Precious Savior, teach me what self-denial is.  Teach me so to distrust my heart that in nothing shall I yield to its desires.  Teach me so to know You that it shall be impossible for me to do anything else than to offer up myself to possess You and Your life.  Amen.

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BEING STILL IN 2014

23 Sunday Feb 2014

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In December, 2009, I committed to reading the Bible in its entirety.  During 2010, I simply read straight through it; I began in Genesis and ended with The Revelation.  I remember that much of the time I felt confused and lost, not understanding much of what I was reading, unable to connect all the dots.  But I also remember how clear it was that I had a lot in common with the people I was reading about. One after the other, I saw how I was like them in so many ways.  I found comfort in knowing they were not perfect people; relieved to see all their faults, weaknesses, and failures.  As I learned more about these people, I understood that God loved me in spite of the mess I had made of my life just as He loved these people in spite of all they had done.  I was hooked.  Reading the Bible was no longer a chore – I looked forward to the time I spent each day discovering new things about the God I thought I knew. I’m not sure if I understood that recognizing these things was one of the ways God was “talking” to me but I was learning things I had never known before and couldn’t stop reading.  The line of communication between me and God was no longer one-way – I had opened the door for Him to speak directly to me.

Each year since then I followed different reading plans to help insure I read the Bible each day and to read it completely through each year.  In 2011 I utilized The Legacy Reading Plan, which grouped the books of the Bible based on things like genre, author and context.  The 3rd and 4th year I followed chronological plans which allowed me to read events in the Bible in the order they happened (as much as can be determined). During those years, I supplemented each plan with books by Biblically-sound authors, commentaries, studies, sermons and articles.  My goal was to learn everything I could so I would be able to answer any question about the Bible that anyone might ask.   I wanted to know the events and people backward and forward. 

I struggled for several weeks to find a plan with a different emphasis for 2014.  Then, as He has done many times in the last 4 years, God thumped my noggin and pointed out to me that I had allowed reading the Bible to become little more than an intellectual exercise.  I seldom used the time to listen for God’s messages to me.  I had lost sight of the fact that each time I sit down with His Word, God wants to say something unique to each one of us.  It was right for me to want to learn things – doctrine, theology, historical events and facts.  But I had let learning facts become THE reason I read His Book.  I did not spend much time listening for the things He longed for me to know. 

So, this year is different.  This year my primary resource for reference and study is God. My goal is not to add to what I have learned about doctrine, theology, and history; although I am still learning something about those things as I hear from God.  I pray fervently before reading that God will open my eyes, ears and heart to what He has to say to me.  I am recording the thoughts that dominate my mind as I read – that is how I hear Him. The thoughts are clear and they come to my mind repeatedly. I anticipated there might be days when He would not give me a clear message, but as of this writing, that has not happened.  Each day as I read God has given me a clear understanding of a passage and I have never been confused or left to wonder about what He is saying to me.

John 8:31-32 “So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth…”

This last week I was reading a Scripture from Philippians – my “book of the month.”  I read a passage and an understanding came to my mind.  I immediately wanted to grab a commentary to find out if my understanding was “correct.”  But, as long as the thought I have does not contradict God’s character or His message as a whole, I can know that what I “hear” is from God.  It is easy to be led astray if we don’t allow ourselves to hear God’s message when He is trying to correct or rebuke us.  It’s tempting to take passages out of context to justify sin in our lives or defend choices that aren’t in keeping with God’s commands. While Satan cannot enter our minds, he has planted deceptions in the world that lead us to believe contradictory beliefs are from God. When this happens in my life, I feel unsettled and find myself arguing with myself.  When I experience those feelings, I go back to the passage, re-read it and wait for a new understanding that is from God.

Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

The insight to the Philippians passage brought me great peace and helped settle a question I have had on my heart for some time now.  As I write out the thoughts God lays on my heart and expand the ideas He presents to me, I learn so much about God, about me, and about living life in a way that’s pleasing to Him.  So far it’s been an amazing process and I feel a deeper love for my Father! This “reading plan” has confirmed to me that God communicates with us in a very real way.  It also highlights for me how important it is to take time to listen – get rid of all the noise that prevents us from hearing Him and connect with Him every day.  How amazing that the Creator of the universe wants this kind of relationship with us and that He provided a way to speak to us directly.  How sad it makes me that so many don’t have this experience or dismiss the reality of my experience as a myth or some sort of fanaticism.  God is in the world, He is living and He wants to be a part of our lives.  Open that Bible and let God talk to you!

1 Corinthians 2:13 “And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual”

For those who might be struggling to “understand” what you are reading, I pray you will not become discouraged.  Often this is the reason people stop picking up their Bibles.  But, when the Holy Spirit dwells in us, we can know that we will understand exactly what God wants us to know at the time He wants to reveal it to us.  A thought about what we’re reading might not come for an hour or two after reading it – perhaps it will even take a day or two.  But always read, and then think on the passage throughout the day.  Pray before, during and after your reading time for God to open your eyes, ears and heart.  If you’re a new believer and want to discuss something God has revealed to you, be sure to ask a trusted believer, to seek out trusted authors, preachers or teachers.  Just keep in mind that God will reveal things to you in His time, not ours.  My daughter and I are often amazed at how often we read a passage or a Scripture that we have read many, many times but our present reading of it yields new understanding – perhaps we’re understanding it for the first time.  But God speaks to us when He is ready to speak about something – not when we want Him to.  We are always amazed at how His timing coincides with the circumstances in our lives.  There are still passages that haven’t been made clear to me but I know in God’s time He will speak to me when I need the message in my life to accomplish His purposes.  He will do the same for you. 

“Each time he listens to the word of the Father, or asks the Father to listen to his words, he dares not begin his Bible reading or prayer without first pausing and waiting, until the soul be hushed in the presence of the Eternal Majesty.” – Andrew Murray, Abiding in Christ

TRUE COMFORT FROM GOD

02 Saturday Nov 2013

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Life has always been a scary proposition for me.  I was born in 1959 so my early childhood was filled with death and war.  One of my earliest memories was the assassination of John F. Kennedy and I remember snippets of his funeral on TV.   That death was followed by the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King and I remember watching the news about those, too.  All of this was overshadowed by the daily nightmare of the Vietnam War.  My 21-year-old uncle was drafted, sent to Vietnam in April of 1966, was wounded and died that September.  Not long after that my grandfather, whom I loved dearly, was in a bad truck accident and they didn’t know if he would survive.  My cousin burned his legs with gasoline and I watched as he screamed in pain whenever they tried to move him.  My aunt got cancer and we visited her in the cancer hospital – a very bleak place.  We moved a lot during that time and I was “painfully shy” (words my teachers used to describe me) so adjusting to the different schools was difficult.  On top of all this was the chaos of the 60’s.  The rules everyone had lived by no longer applied and I listened as the adults lamented the end of the world. Life scared me.

As I listened to adults talk about these tragic events, I didn’t hear any mention of the fact that God is ultimately in control of it all and that He has a plan for this world.  Many in my family told me they believed in God, a few talked about Jesus, but I never saw that their beliefs brought them any comfort.  Their words and actions only expressed fear and the response to most problems was anger.  Perhaps I was just never around when they actually talked about the comfort God provided them.  I do remember my mother telling me that she got through life because she trusts God but we didn’t go to church, I never actually saw her reading her Bible and she didn’t teach me anything about God or Jesus, so I wasn’t able to figure out how she felt comforted by Him.  I just knew that over my lifetime I knew about God but that head knowledge had not comforted me.

As a child, I found comfort sitting on my grandpa’s lap, getting hugs and being tucked into bed by my mom and spending time with my grandmother.  These physical expressions of love helped me deal with my fears.  But as I looked to God for comfort, I wasn’t sure how to experience the calm I found through physical expressions from a being I cannot see, someone who cannot hug me or allow me to curl up in His lap.  I had no trouble finding comfort in God in normal day-to-day living, but I had not had a trial that tested my trust in Him. Then it happened.

Psalm 23:4 – “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; ForYou are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”

As I struggled with overwhelming fear and anxiety once again, I was determined to use the tools God provides instead of going back to the coping skills I used before.  I was not going to let my fears consume me and take away the peace I had found.  The Holy Spirit now dwells within me and I knew I needed to allow His power to work in me this time.  I was determined to deal with this trial His way. My expectation was that I could experience the same comfort I felt from the hugs I got as a child.  I trusted that God would completely fulfill my expectation.  I had to do the things I had learned as I studied His Word.

Psalm 34:17 – “When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.”

I pray consistently throughout each day but as the weight of my struggle overwhelmed me, I had to change my conversations with God.   I needed to stop talking during my prayers and spend more time listening to “hear” what He wanted me to know. One of the first things He bought to my mind was the fact that He is in the midst of answering one of my prayers.  Each time I had taken this particular request to Him I assured Him that I trusted Him to work it out and I would trust Him no matter what that might look like.  My daughter and I often talk about how our anticipation of an event never prepares us for how it actually feels.  I slowly understood that fear is going to be there but ultimately I have to fully trust God and truly believe His promises.

2 Timothy 1:7 – “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”

I was also reminded to stay out of His way.  My instinct to help too often becomes enabling and it is difficult for me to sit back and watch those I love go through trials.  God reminded me that trials are how He builds our character and refines us and each time I went to Him in prayer, He laid on my heart to trust Him in all of it, including those times when I can help but shouldn’t.  I was also reminded that in order to get eternal results, some temporal things must happen that don’t always look promising!  Most importantly, I must always keep in mind that the ultimate purpose of prayer is to build my relationship with God.  Prayer is companionship with Him.  My attitude about prayer must not be about asking and getting, but being with Him.  As I made this the priority for my prayer life, I found comfort.

Habakkuk 3:17-19 – “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord;”

The other change I had to make in my prayer life was shifting my focus from my struggle to praising God and thanking Him for who He is and all He has given us.  Shifting my thoughts from trouble and worry to thankfulness reminds me of God’s goodness which stops my inclination to blame God for allowing pain in our lives.  I remember that He has a plan for this world and for me and that it is good.  In his book Prayer: Does It Make a Difference Phillip Yancey includes the words of Helmut Thielicke, a German preacher offering words of encouragement to his congregation in the midst of suffering under the Nazi regime:

“One day, perhaps, when we look back from God’s throne on the last day we shall say with amazement and surprise, “If I had ever dreamed that God was only carrying out His design and plan…, that in the midst of my cares and troubles and despair… everything was pressing on toward His last kingly day …I would have been more calm and confident; yes, then I would have been more cheerful and far more tranquil and composed.”

Romans 15:4 – “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” 

I read the Bible just about every day and even when things are going smoothly skipping days leaves me feeling lost and empty.  Often as I face smaller struggles, the last thing I want to do is read my Bible, but I know God wants to “talk” to us through His Word and as soon as I go to Him there, the emptiness is gone.  I generally spend time reading whatever plan I am currently following; isolated quotes never helped me much until I began reading the Bible in chronological order.  Using this type of reading plan, I was able to read what King David was experiencing when he wrote each of his Psalms.  I saw how David went to the Lord in honest prayer to express his emotions and how he recalled God’s attributes and promises to get him through each trial. In the same way, reading God’s promises in context helps me see the problems His people were facing when He revealed the promise.   After following the chronological reading plan three times I have a better understanding of the context of scripture and I can better apply them to different situations.  In addition to reading relevant scripture, I know the Bible is God’s way of talking to us and with the knowledge that every word written comes from Him, I am better able to feel His presence.  It’s almost as good as a hug from God!

Hebrews 10:25 – “Not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another,”

Fellowship with other Christians is my greatest struggle, but I have started building relationships and knew I needed others during this time.  Once again my daughter was my main means of support, but I also reached out to my LifeGroup from church, asking them for prayer.  Their e-mail messages assuring me they would be praying for me brought comfort that I was surprised to feel.  There is a big difference when you know the people praying for you really do believe in the power of prayer and that they do genuinely care about you.  With these people I know the phrase “I’ll pray for you” is not just an empty phrase.  They believe in it and they do it.

I experienced God’s comfort by doing the things He tells me to do: praying, reading His word, and seeking support and encouragement from fellow believers.  Though I cannot see Him or receive a physical hug from Him, I experienced real comfort directly from Him.  He IS with us and, if we will reach out to Him, He will comfort us.

Matthew 28:20 – “and lo, I am with you always”

LOVE BEYOND COMPREHENSION

25 Friday Oct 2013

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You know how you can be skipping along through life and one day realize you never fully understood something you thought you had figured out a long time ago?   That happened to me the other night.  I was praying, asking God to help me through a struggle I am experiencing.  As is my habit, my prayer consisted of expressing my trust that He will work it out for good while questioning what I needed to do to correct the situation and asking Him to forgive me for getting in His way.  My prayer brought on more frustration than peace. 

Psalm 46:10 – “Be still, and know that I am God”

Then God’s still, small voice came to me and I felt His presence. It was as if God was physically beside me, cradling me in His arms as He whispered into my ear “My child, you do not yet understand my love for you.”  It literally took my breath away.  I started to respond but immediately understood that this was a time to listen; to be still.  I lay there thinking about what I have experienced and what I have learned over the past four years, and what I know to be true about God.   He brought to my mind how I keep struggling to insure I live up to the love He has for me, even though I know in my mind He requires nothing from me.  I recalled how I constantly try not to disappoint Him and He reminded me that even when I do it doesn’t change His love for me one bit.

Psalm 139: 7-10:  “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.  If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me”

I am not good at relationships.  Too often in my family people handled conflicts with others by putting them out of their lives.  I’ve done the same thing over and over in my life.  Ending a relationship was easier than changing my behavior or an attitude, easier than admitting I’m wrong or putting forth extra effort to show love when I wasn’t feeling it.  We tend to manage our relationship with God the same way we handle our relationships with people and I realized that’s what I was doing.  I was constantly struggling to make sure I held up my end of the relationship but I had no idea how to do that.  I feared I would mess up or quit trying out of frustration.  God is literally a part of me, He dwells in me, and walking away from this relationship is not an option!    

Hosea 14:4 – “…I will love them freely.”

I knew God’s grace is free; it’s not possible to pay my debt so, in my mind, God came up with a plan to save us but that didn’t mean He necessarily had to love us (clear as mud, huh?).  Somehow I separated His grace from His love.  Love in this world is work and we are taught explicitly and implicitly that we must earn it.  It’s hard to change our thinking about that because that’s the only kind of love we have ever experienced.  But we have to get past that and truly accept that His love is different, it really is free.  God is not waiting for me to do certain things to “earn” it.

Funny, but my granddaughter just happened to be spending the night with me the night of my prayer and was asleep in the bed next to me (God’s timing is impeccable!).  As I looked at her I thought about how much I love her and how much my love for her surprises me sometimes – the depth of it, the tenderness of it; there is nothing she does that makes my love for her grow stronger each day, yet it does.  There is nothing she can do that would diminish my love for her; nothing she can do that would make me not want to be around her; I would do anything to protect her.  Even when she does things that I don’t like, my love for her isn’t diminished at all.  God showed me in that moment that while I can compare His love to what I feel for my granddaughter, His is greater.  It finally sunk in and I wept. 

Psalm 103:11 “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;”

 I walked an aisle and accepted Jesus’s gift of salvation when I was about 11 years old.  But I gave in to worldly pressures and lived my life apart from God for the next 10 or 11 years.  I returned to Him after my daughter was born but again yielded to the temptations of the world after about 6 years.  I lived the following 24 years much like Solomon, running after every desire I had:  money, men, material possessions, worldly “wisdom.”  Granted, I did not have near the resources Solomon did to satisfy his desires, but I acquired what I could with the little I had by any (legal!) means I could manage.  In 2009 the burden of my sinful life became too much to bear and I begged God to take over.  Over the past four years I’ve come to know Him.  As I looked back at the 39 years since I first accepted what Jesus did for me on that cross, I saw all that He had done for me even as I lived in total disobedience.  It was God who had taken care of me.  He had never allowed anything in my life that I couldn’t handle.  He had, in fact, kept every promise He makes to us in His Word.  The night of my prayer I saw how He has cared for me, how patient He has been.  I have done so many things that no doubt grieve Him mightily and in spite of it all, He took me back.  

Isaiah 41:13: “For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.”

As I lay there that night I realized I am the prodigal Jesus talks about in His parable in the 15th chapter of Luke:

Luke 15:17-24 – “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’  So he got up and went to his father. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.  “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.  Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate.  For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.”

It is nothing short of amazing that God welcomed me back with open arms.  He doesn’t hold anything back.  He doesn’t treat those of us who go astray any differently from those who have been obedient to Him. Now, get this:  each time one of His wayward children come back, there is great rejoicing in heaven.  He rejoiced when I came back! 

Luke 15:10 – “…I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

That night I finally gave control of my heart to God.  Knowing the truth about God’s love fills me with a desperate desire to please Him in everything I do.  It’s no longer a struggle of my will.  As I deal with the situation I prayed about that night, I have a new peace and love towards the people involved.  Since that night, I see others through God’s eyes – the ones that watched as I did things that broke His heart.  Through it all, He watched with unwavering love for me, knowing I would return.  I must pass His love on and I now have the power and the understanding to do it.  I can do no less. 

Jeremiah 31:3 – “The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.”