God’s Love

Lost

Valerie Cullers 14 Comments

When our oldest son was about three, we met some friends up at a lake. I was standing on one side of the boat ramp, and my husband and his friend were standing a few feet away on the other side of the ramp. Our son wanted to come over to where I was, and my husband said, “Sure.” He took off, and my hubby just assumed he was with me. He was busy chatting with his friend, and since I was in plain sight, he didn’t give it a second thought.

A few minutes later, my husband came over to where I was and he didn’t have Shawn with him. Shawn had walked right past me and was who knows where. Inside of me, I began to panic. There were lots of people at the lake that day, which only added to my consternation. My friends took off down the path, and I just stood there frozen. I could barely breathe. If something happened to my son, I knew I would not be able to live with myself. Second after second ticked by as I fought back hysteria. Thankfully, a few minutes later, our friends found him following the path along the lake, looking for me. To say I was relieved would be an understatement.

The Lord brought this incident back to my mind recently. When I think about the way I felt about my son being lost, it may, in some small way, reflect how the Lord feels when He looks down at His children and sees so many of them lost. I do not believe the Lord is panicked or hysterical, but the thought of losing them forever must be heart-wrenching. Millions are looking for Him, but because they are on the wrong path, they will never find Him. They will just continue walking until they walk right past Him into a Christless eternity.

Luke 19:10 says: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” That means that if you are lost, if you are looking for some sort of meaning in this life, some sort of God, some sort of something but don’t know what; He is looking for you…right now. He wants you to stop, turn around and look for Him, Jesus, the One who can save your soul and give your life meaning.

He cares for you more than you can ever know and He has no desire for you to spend eternity without Him. He will be crushed to lose you, a precious part of His beloved creation. No matter where you are, what you have done or where your search has taken you, it is not too late to find Him, the One your soul is ultimately looking for. His name is Jesus Christ and He will more than meet you half way. Turn around while you still can, while you’re still safe and while you still have hope.

Photo by Pexels. Courtesy of Pixabay.

Hyenas are Easy to Hate

Valerie Cullers 18 Comments

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Have you ever watched one of the National Geographic specials on television about the Serengeti? Especially beautiful are the migrations of the gazelles and zebras as they cross the plains. If you look closely, though, following them in the tall grass are the hyenas. I watch them with horror as I see the packs get into position to attack one of the weak or the young of the herd. At that point, I can’t watch the program any longer, I really can’t. I turn the television off because I am so angry at the hyenas. If there ever was an animal that is easy to hate, it is the hyena.

As I watched the demonstrations in the last few weeks, I noticed the hyenas at the edge of the crowds. I knew instinctively that there would be trouble as they tried to take advantage of an already volatile situation. And true to form, they looted businesses, burned buildings, and beat innocent individuals, some of them even to death.  I grew angry as I watched them throw Molotov cocktails and destroy businesses that it took people years to build. My anger continued towards them, and my heart became hard when I thought of them. There was no love for them in my heart at all.

As I was thinking about them and the destruction they left in their wake, the Lord convicted me of my attitude. He doesn’t want me to have hate in my heart, even for those who hurt and destroy other people’s lives. Of all the crazy things, He wants me to have His kind of love for them, Agape Love. Agape Love is a love that loves unconditionally, no matter what someone has done. He wants me to pray for them; and pray that they will see the error of their ways and turn their lives around. If that’s not enough, He even wants me to pray a blessing on their lives.

So, I have begun to pray for them because I don’t want hate to get a foothold in my heart. At first it was difficult, but as the days have gone by, it is getting easier and easier to pray for them. I haven’t been able to pray that God would bless them yet, but my heart is getting softer, and even that doesn’t seem like such a stretch any longer.

I don’t know how you feel about hyenas, but if you are struggling with anger and a bunch of negative emotions, talk to the Father of Lights about it. He will give you His Agape Love. It will fill your hearts, and you will find your attitudes changing. In the end, only Love will change the day; not force, not violence, but God’s love producing goodwill in our hearts towards all men.