Can't Stop Love

"If there is anything I have learned in my life, it's that so very little is within our control. Our passions arise to surprise us. Our loves jump out at us like boogeymen as we round a dark corner or open the closet. We try and we try to make things fit, to steer the events of our lives a certain way, to create boundaries of experience and feeling, to wall ourselves off from one another, to stop love - which should never be stopped, ever - and my dears, it simply cannot be done." ~Quote from Sing Them Home by Stephanie Kallos.

We are miserable creatures, we humans.  We want to love and be loved, to feel good about ourselves, to see ourselves in the best possible light.  We tend to hang around with those who make us happy, and avoid those who make us uncomfortable.  If we could, we'd wall ourselves off from each other and live in mansions of ease,  interacting only with those who are invited to enter our hallowed halls.


But God designs families His way.  He puts into our lives exactly those people who will sharpen our rough edges and expose our hidden sins.  He causes the man at the gas station, the girl at the grocery store, the truck driver who cuts us off on the highway to behave in such a manner that we react, and spew out what is really inside our hearts.  Wickedness.  Spite.  Hatred.  Pride.  Self-centeredness.


We can't put up walls.  We can't steer the events of our lives a certain way.


All we can do is to flee to Jesus.  We can look to Him, and ask Him to show us where we need to change.  It's not about changing others - it's all about our hearts before God.

I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith and love and every grace
Might more of His salvation know
And seek more earnestly His face

Twas He who taught me thus to pray
And He I trust has answered prayer
But it has been in such a way
As almost drove me to despair

I hoped that in some favored hour
At once He’d answer my request
And by His love’s constraining power
Subdue my sins and give me rest

Instead of this He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart
And let the angry powers of Hell
Assault my soul in every part

Yea more with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Cast out my feelings, laid me low

Lord why is this, I trembling cried
Wilt Thou pursue thy worm to death?
“Tis in this way” The Lord replied
“I answer prayer for grace and faith”

“These inward trials I employ
From self and pride to set thee free
And break thy schemes of earthly joy
That thou mayest seek thy all in me,
That thou mayest seek thy all in me.”