Love and Protect

"I love this song!"  It was the morning after the "rough morning" and my ipod was not working properly but in the midst of my frustration, there it was, my favorite song.  I remembered the first time I heard it, an outdoor Christian music concert with 50,000 people!  It was an awesome weekend and that song grabbed me.  It was love at first hearing and it's been over three years and I'm still in love.

 

In Deuteronomy 30:1-10 heart is mentioned 6 times.  The Israelites are told to take "to heart" the blessings and curses, to obey God with heart and soul and to love God with all their heart and soul.  I'd jotted in my journal "It's about your heart."  These verses made me ponder falling in love.

I have vivid memories of falling in love or the instant I knew I was in love.  South Dakota for my favorite song. San Francisco and a little boy clutching my shirt. Driving in a car and deciding I was keeping that second puppy.   Brushing my teeth in my college dorm.

I realized once you fall in love you must decide what to do about it.  Just after brushing my teeth in that college dorm I changed the calendar of events for my life.  I'd planned an internship  over a thousand miles away and then graduate school somewhere that I can't recall.  I knew I didn't want to be separated so I made new decisions.  "I'll go to graduate school someday".  I didn't make it to the graduate school I'd planned but I've never regretted my life choices and experiences.  I've always said "life is an adventure with Dick Sipe."  I think one of my bridal shower gifts from a mutual friend was a journal entitled, "Life with Dick Sipe."  She knew him and she knew God.  She knew our life together (Dick, Jan and God) would be an adventure!  Thanks Gwen, you were right!

Once I decided I was in love, I made decisions to protect it.  These verses in Deuteronomy remind me that my relationship with God must also be protected.  These verses tell me that I protect my heart and relationship with God by obedience.  My obedience preserves my relationship with God and protects me from sin, the sin of false worship. 

God promises the Israelites will be blessed in their work, the womb, livestock and crops.  When the Israelites love God with all their heart and soul, their daily lives and family will be blessed and they will be  prosperous. My obedience will also result in a prosperous life, or in my case, an exciting and adventurous life!

We think we control our prosperity and blessings by how we labor and plan.  Our prosperity really comes from God and how we choose to preserve our relationship with Him.  We think we own and control our lives but do we?  Everything really comes from God.

We can only control so much of our lives.  I'm going to learn to love God more and preserve that love, to trust and obey.  Obedience is the preservation of the precious. 

It's all about Heart.

H ave no other God.

E ven if it doesn't make sense.

A lways follow His commands in spite of the world's logic.

R estrict negative influences.

T hen prosper will take on a whole new meaning!