Soul Sister Time

              We are born into this world with a longing to be loved.   We can’t help it.   We can’t stop it.   It is a part of being human.   It will never go away.   So many live their whole life without experiencing the love they were created to know.   Many who make a connection with God never strain hard enough to discover that His love is the love they have been searching for all their lives.   All those promising relationships, first with parents, then teachers, caregivers, girlfriends and boyfriends, husbands and wives.   None of these relationships reach their full potential until you know that you are loved by God.   When you stop and let it sink in; it is overwhelming to realize the love God describes He holds for us.   As I cleaned out my round brush blow dryer this week.   The picture is kind of gross.   Besides the fact that I lose a lot of hair in my round brush, it made me sit down and to take in how God describes about his love for me.    I wondered how long it m

              I was in a meeting this week that highlighted a simple reality that creates crisis in our relationships.   That reality is that we continue to be so focused on our own belief system that we miss out on the truth that would bring unity.   Whether it is in politics, families, marriages, or with God.               Sometimes it takes a crisis in our lives to open our heart, mind and spirit to understand the belief of another.   Sometimes we have to be desperate to lay down the beliefs that separate us.   Belief is vital to our spiritual life, our relationships and, of course, to our salvation.   It all comes down to what we believe and how willing we are to seek a common point of belief in order to discover the possibility for unity.               This was reinforced when I had a very interesting discussion with my uber driver in the fifteen minutes it took to arrive at my destination.   He asked where I worked, and since I am a Baptist minister my answer often opens

              Have you ever been betrayed?   Betrayal is one of the most soul crushing relationship experiences.   Betrayal requires a deeper intensity of forgiveness. This is because betrayal leaves a silent, unrelenting and devastating effects on your soul.   It is more severe when the betrayal is inflicted by a close friend, spouse, or intimate family, member more so than an organization.   Betrayal sinks your soul into a black hole forcing your heart to concede the harsh reality that you can no longer trust a person or organization that you once relied on for a sense of security.   The experience of betrayal may lead you to discover your blind-spot about how much you placed your identity in this person or place.   Betrayal forces you to recognize your world is far more dangerous than you previously assumed.   That is why it rocks you to your core in a way that other disappointments do not.   It overwhelms you like an emotional tsunami knocking you off your feet, weakened and ov

                Luke 9:49-50 says, “ For everyone will be salted with fire.   Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again?   Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another .”   So, what is this salt that Jesus is talking about?   And what about that fire?   We all want peace with one another; but if it takes having salt in me, what does that mean?               Salt is often used in scripture to refer to purification and to illustrate the Christian’s spiritual impact on a decaying world.   Salt brings out the taste of the things of God and preserves the world against the propensity of sin to decompose and destruct God’s intended creation.   Christians are called to be the salt of the earth, delaying the day when there is no hope of faith from any soul.   If you think things are bad in the world you live in, consider if there were no Christians (the salt) living among us.   Perhaps it is because the Christians you know have lo

              Ahabah is the Hebrew word for love that is translated in to agape in the Greek.   Ahabah is the most Godlike love known on earth.   This kind of love centers on the lover rather than the lovee.   It is an unconditional, unbreakable, sacrificial kind of love.   You cannot ahabah popcorn.   It’s not about how you feel.   When you know for certain that you have ahabah is when the subject of your love has betrayed, abandoned, cut out your heart and you remain committed to their well-being.               Ahabah is not being a doormat.   It is not putting a band-aide on the lovee’s cruel treatment.   It is born out of a struggle with hate, revenge, punishment and unforgiveness.   The journey to ahabah will take you to places within yourself that decent people never want to recognize.   You cannot truly have ahabah until you have recognized that you are capable of being equally as cruel and disgusting to God as the person you despise, yet He sees you as worthy of His ahab