Love Dare Day 21--Love Is Satisfied In God

The Lord will continually guide you, and satisfy your desire........Isaiah 58:11

and the dare for today:

Be intentional today about making a time to pray and read your Bible. Try reading a chapter out of Proverbs each day or reading a chapter in the Gospels. As you do, immerse yourself in the love and promises God has for you. This will add to your growth as you walk with Him.

I read this dare, and I almost decided not to post about it. I do this every day, my quiet time in the morning with God. I read my Bible every morning, pray, listen to worship music. and I journal--writing down what I have learned from my Bible reading that day, how God is speaking to me. And I also date and journal my prayers. When God answers my prayer, I go back and write His answer--with the date--in my journal next to the original prayer.

But, then I read the chapter in the book. As I read this, I realized how important it is for me to continue doing this--every day of my life.

I have read verses before during circumstances in my life, and God has spoken to me through them in a very special way. During a different situation, I could read these exact same verses, and God will speak to me through these verses in a different way.

The Bible is God's Word written down for us so that we can draw closer to God, learn more about Him, realize that He is ever faithful, ever trustworthy, always dependable, always loving, and only He can bring the inner peace and true joy that so many are seeking in other ways.

We, as human beings, cannot meet all of these requirements for one another. God, however, can. As we draw closer to closer to Him and more dependent upon Him for our needs in our life, we can see just how dependable, faithful, trustworthy, and loving He is and will always be.

He is the only one in my life who will never change.

I am currently doing a study on the book of Ephesians through my church. This is broken down into reading several verses every day, then studying upon them and asking yourself questions about the verses that you have read.

These are the questions that I am asking myself each day as I read just a small portion of God's Word:

Is there a..............

• Truth to believe?
• Promise to claim?
• Perspective to embrace?
• Attitude to adjust?
• Priority to change?
• Lesson to learn?
• Command to obey?
• Offense to forgive?
• Sin to confess?
• Action to take?

And what is the key thought in these verses? Now I can't even begin to claim that I thought this up by myself! This is what my entire church is studying at this time. You can stop by and visit there if you'd like. The name of my church is Daybreak--coming from "Everyday is a fresh start with God".

I'll share with you a few of my key thoughts from my journal on this study of Ephesians:

I have been chosen by God, and I am His daughter--a daughter of The King.

I am redeemed through Jesus Christ.

I am God's adopted daughter through the Holy Spirit.

I am a workmanship of God and God alone.

I am rescued.

God trusts me to do His Will.

These are just a few of my key thoughts from studying just a few verses every day. Yes, I get up earlier than necessary in order to do this, but it is well worth it. I carry God's Word and my key thought for the day with me--all through my day at work, recalling it as often as I can throughout my day.

Now, back to how this day can impact my children--my 3 children for whom I am doing this "Love Dare".

My quiet time is very early in the morning--before anyone else is up. They all are adults and two of them are living on their own.

My children know that I attend church regularly, they know that I worship God, they know my beliefs, they know that I pray. In fact, daughter #1 has asked me to pray about certain situations in several of her friends' lives even though she professes to be a nonbeliever.

And they have to hear the worship music I listen to!! You can probably hear it at your house!!

But, and this is a big but--they don't even know that I have a quiet time. They have never seen me read and study the Bible, write down what God is telling me through His Word, through song.

I value my early morning quiet time, and I will not give that up. But, I think I need to add an evening time also. This way they will be able to see that God's Word is real to me, the living truth, what I do and will always live by.

And now on to Day 22:

LOVE IS FAITHFUL


I wil betroth you to Me in faithfulness, then you will know the Lord...Hosea 2:20


and the dare for this day:


Love is a choice, not a feeling. It is an initiated action, not a knee-jerk reaction. Choose today to be committed to love even if your children seem to have lost their interest in receiving it. Say to them today in words similar to these:


"I love you. Period. I choose to love you even if you don't love me in return."

Make sure you stop by Chelle's to read about all the participants in this dare.

Beth