Love

I have been completely blown away these last two days. I don't even know how to sum it up. Dwayne and Jennifer Roberts are on the leadership team at the International House Of Prayer in Kansas City which they helped start. Jennifer has been talking to us the last two days and Dwayne starts tomorrow. They're talking about the Song of Solomon. She is blowing my mind. She talked about how important the 1st commandment is. To love God above all else. We need to desire to have a close relationship with God more than anything else. He does not disappoint, while the people of the earth always do. We talked about the Bridal Parody and that we are as precious to God as a bride to a groom. As much as we should desire God, He desires each of us. We need to be in desperate love for God because there is a part of our heart that only God can meet and it is not fair for us to put that expectation on worldly relationships. There are times where it is harder and it is because God likes to hide himself because he loves to be found. The joy is in the discovery. Lots of times people read Songs and get so distracted by the imagery used. They are only used to express Gods amazing love over us. When its says "Kiss me again, for your love is sweeter than wine" it is a metaphor for the words coming from his mouth that are sweet encouragement to our ears. God is all knowing, He already knows our weaknesses and mistakes and yet He loves us anyways. Why would you not want to love him right back? Jennifer said that by faith and the grace of God you can have an amazing lasting marriage that is like this. Today she talked more about how pleased God is with who you are. As long as you have a heart that is yearning to do his will, no matter if you mess up he is delighted in what he sees. He know you and still love you! There are going to be major bumps but as long as we don't give up God is so proud. Sometimes success is just not quitting. Today we were praying and I knew God was really please with my obedience in him and that he loved me. I was so pleased that God loved me for who I was. And then God flipped my way of thinking. It took someone coming up and saying something to make me realize that God doesn't love me because I obey him. He loves me so much because I have accepted him into my life and because of this I want to obey him. He loves me even if I don't love him back. If I could take away one thing from these two days it is this. God loved me first and I want to love someone who loves me even my weakest points when I'm not obeying him. So this has been the last two mornings. Monday afternoon we headed into Seattle because we had tickets for the Mariners game that evening. We walked around Pike Place Market, Carly and I spent time together talking and I loved it. Sadly we lost the game but it was my first baseball game and I had a great time. This afternoon we presented our projects about Cambodia. I learned so much and can't believe we leave in 3 weeks!