I'm not sure that I know the answer to this one. Have you ever considered that others may know how to love others better than you? What gives them this innate sense of how to perfectly love all the time. It's like a brand new mother just after the birth of her child. You don't have to tell her how to love the child, she just does. Why can it not be that way with a man? It seems to me that my mind is always getting in the way. I'm always trying to figure how how to love the best. I spend so much time thinking about it as opposed to just loving from my heart that I often miss many an opportunitys because instead of engaging my wife or son's in the moment, I leave them hanging thinking I'll have another opportunity. What if we really don't? We as men often assume that we will, but is life really that perfect, do bad things never happen? How can I seize every opportunity that comes my way. How do you get to the bottom of who you are to really understand what's preventing you from being what you really want to be. Is it fear of the unknown, fear of rejection, or is it really fear that you personally are not loved. What if we could risk it all and not care what others think. What if I could experience the Love of the Father in such a way that I would love differently from hence forth? You would think that I of all people would understand what it means to love my family. After all the Father gave me a choice, do you want to stay or go. My heart broke as I thought about my family growing up with out me. The boys with out a dad to show them their way to manhood, My wife alone with no one to share life's simple pleasures, glorious victories, and trials; and last but least my children to be and the daughters that I've not even met yet and missing out on the opportunity to give them away on their wedding day. In my heart I do love them, but knowing it is not enough. We must demonstrate love.
NO I have to much to live for and I know that I've not accomplished everything you want me to do, Lord. I have much to do. So I've told my family that I love them, but what if that is not enough either. They need to see it in action. They need a Dad to wrestle, joke, explore, and to study with. My wife needs me to say less, listen more, do less, and love and hug more. What if you are rejected, then what? I hear the Father saying the same thing over and over: "Hush, quite now, just hold them and love them. Run after them, do not grow weary, do not loose heart. After all who can measure or fathom the depth of God's love, how wide, deep, and long is the love of the Lord? Can we know this love? The answer is "Yes." Just ask him to reveal Himself to us as Love. Teach us to be love, reflect love, and give love away even when there is nothing in it for us. Lord let me never take it for granted again.
Love much.
