Do I Love You Enough?

People don’t like love, they like the flittery flirty feeling.

They don’t love love.

Love is sacrificial, love is ferocious, it’s not emotive.

Our culture doesn’t love love, it loves the idea of love.

It wants the emotion without paying anything for it.

Matt Chandler

Lord, teach me to love as you love.

If I have all the emotions that I recognize as love, but those emotions never inspire me to act, what good is love?

Let my emotions manifest in kindness and patience. Let them rejoice with truth and promote endurance because of hope.

Let love banish from my life envy, boasting, arrogance, rudeness, self-focus, irritability and resentment.

May I be known for how I love – for what I do stand for more than for what I oppose.

May I be known to listen intently – hearing the heart behind the story.

May the words I speak be wisdom from You and not my own dogmatic opinion.

Oh, Lord, let my legacy be love.

Do I love your people enough?

Do I love them enough to hold them in my arms when they are hurting even when their own choices and behavior caused the hurt?

Do I love them enough to feed them even when their own choices and behavior have left them destitute?

Do I love them enough to speak truth even when that truth will hurt?

Do I love them enough to risk my relationship with them for the sake of their relationship with You?

Do I love them enough to pray for them fervently instead of nagging incessantly?

And Lord – do I love You enough to trust You with them?

Do I love You enough to trust the good You will work in their lives?

Do I trust You enough to believe that You love them even more than I do?

Oh, Lord, teach me to love like you love - love that is sacrificial and ferocious because. . .

Your love is enough.