Tuesday 18 June 2013

I heard love

Yesterday I heard love and it had a physical effect on me which I’m still feeling 24 hours later.  It is so difficult to try and assign words to this amazing spiritual experience but I’m going to give it a try.

When I heard love it was a very uneventful moment, my husband simply said to our youngest daughter “Are you coming to clean your teeth munchkin”?   It was in the midst of everybody getting ready for school and work and it could be considered very unremarkable.  In that very moment, in those very words, I heard love.  Not plain humanly, earthly love but heavenly Godly love, life giving love, love that makes you believe love is all we need and love can change the world.  Love that flowed directly from the heart. 
 
There are so many passages in the Bible that refer to the fact that what is in our heart flows from our mouth, one such instance is in Luke 6:43-45 (CEB) Jesus says "A Good tree doesn't produce bad fruit, nor does a bad tree produce good fruit.  Each tree is known by its own fruit. People don’t gather figs from thorny plants, nor do they pick grapes from prickly bushes. A good person produces good from the good treasury of the inner self, while an evil person produces evil from the evil treasury of the inner self. The inner self overflows with words that are spoken.

The words from my husband were not planned or rehearsed and as he spoke them he did not know the effect they would have on me and our home, they simply flowed from the good treasury in his heart.  In those simple words I heard God express love to our daughter.  The tone and the strength combined with the love and genuine kindness in these simple words was indescribably powerful.

It felt like God used Craig as a vessel to express love in that very moment, to breathe love into our home in that instant, on that ordinary Tuesday morning.  Do I sound like a crazy person?  Maybe, but I feel like there is a powerful reassurance in this experience.  It shows that God can use us to express His love and compassion for all His people in ways we could not even dream of.  Ways that seem absolutely insignificant and unimportant, ways that we do not recognise at the time but in ways that are so much more powerful that we can ever intend them to be. 
 
In Matthew 15:17-18 (CEB) Jesus said "Don't you know that everything that goes into the mouth enters the stomach and goes out into the sewer?  But what goes out of the mouth comes from the heart”.  The words Craig spoke the other day would not have had any effect on our home if his heart had been contaminated and we live in a world where it is so easy for our hearts to become contaminated.  If something, or somebody, makes your heart feel good I suggest you invest heavily in these things and people.  It may be equally important to reduce the number of things that make your heart hurt or feel heavy and sad.  Don’t apologise for this, Proverbs 4:23 clearly says “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”