Beloved Children

Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us.

EPHESIANS 5:1-2, NASB

Do you ever get that feeling that you've been in an exact situation with the exact same people before?

Some call it deja vu but I think it's just human nature

We are born to be relational; to be empathetic and sympathetic, and even when we feel pathetic, we are drawn to lift a white flag of surrender and call out to anyone with even the slightest bit of familiarity.

But when was the last time you felt that weird sense of repetition in loving a complete stranger?

I catch myself staring at the crevices in between my shoe laces too often, but it's not my feet that need to be watched. It's my heart. Because walking in love has far more to do with letting Christ's love pump through your veins than carefully stepping around cracks and corners. Sometimes, those very obstacles you are trying to avoid will bring you to a whole new path that was even more scenic than the first.

The Bible says I'm a beloved child but lately I've been feeling like the kid with scraped elbows and knees, screaming for more, more, more. I'm selfish and hard-headed and altogether bruised and broken. How could I be beloved?

Beloved: (adj.) 1. dearly loved, 2. dear to the heart

He calls me His beloved; how sweet that is. He doesn't look past my weakness and struggle and paint me as a rosie-cheeked, wide-eyed child. Instead He takes my very imperfections and uses them as they are. He's an expert craftsmen that knows that even the most tarnished items on the shelf possess potential and value. My identity as a beloved child does not come from my own will or way, yet it is defined by my Maker. 

I long to be filled with His love. I want my lungs to know what it's like to breathe in His creation day after day. For even they are at His command. He loves to make me catch my breath. 

He reveals Himself in the people around me, the young girl crying out in protest as her country is being torn apart by war and violence. She is too young to remember, but she hears her mother and father cry at night and so she yells for freedom and for peace. Do I walk in love with her?

The homeless living on city streets, left to navigate cold nights and colder hearts. The ground scattered with bible verses and cardboard signs and hope. Do I walk in love with them?

The tired eyes and wounded hearts. 

The triumphant cries and beaming smiles.

The seeking and forgiven and the lost and forsaken.

Do I walk in love with them?

I think I'm still learning how to walk. I have weak knees and a shaky heart and like a baby taking its first steps, I am constantly reaching up to my Father for assurance and support. I am still learning how to have love deja vu. To love so freely and to live as Christ did so that smiling at strangers and talking with new people doesn't just feel like a routine, but continually inspires and amazes me. 

Through Him, I have the power to not just walk in love but to run marathons in love. For everything I cannot relate to and whisper "I know how it feels", He is there to be my voice and my guide and say "Just show them my love."

And the miracle isn't that He uses bruised and protesting children to walk in His ways, but that He set a path to begin with. That His love for us was so incredible that it took on flesh and walked on this Earth and gives us a tangible example to follow. That we can joyfully long to show others the slightest glimpse of who He is through who we are.