...in a moment of weakness I sat and watched the bachelor. A handsome doctor from Nashville greets 25 women in from of a "chateau" in Paris and tries to narrow it down to 12. There was one girl in particular that probably got everyone's attention: This girl told him first and foremost her goal is to come out of this deal to reproduce.

Hold up.

Did she just say that? What happened to love? What is true love anyway? I think the bach. himself put it best when he told her she was putting the cart before the horse. How does she see relationships? A necessary means to getting what she wants?

Hmm. How often do we maintain friendships our relationships to get what we want for ourselves is the opposite of what I think God made relationships for.

How disheartening would it be to find that someone married you just so they could have your kids, or someone befriended you just so they would ride in your car (ha. right) or just so they could get in with your other friends. . . had an eye on someone else? All that is entering into a relationship for selfish reasons, and then it's a big cycle of being disappointed, and sucking the life out of one another, never experiencing what true love is meant to be (from God's perspective, of course!).

He pursues us because He loves us, in fact, He IS love! It just pours out of Him and onto us if we will just receive it. He didn't call us His children for us to serve Him, to do things FOR Him, or so that He could get something out of us. (Although these are honorable things when done with a pure heart).

It is simply the nature of God to LOVE. And I think He has set a precedent for relationships through that. I enjoy a relationship most when I find I have the ability to make the other person happy. It's not about getting my needs met (such and the need to feel loved, accepted, significant, etc) but it's about receiving from Love Himself and out of that fullness giving in with great joy to those around me. And somehow I am gratified even more when a face lights up or a heart is changed. I think God feels the same way. How exhausting is it to try and draw out of a human what only GOD can do? So often we find ourselves waiting on what we can get or how we can please someone because we are deceiving, thinking that we need their approval. God says that's backwords. It's idols.

There is no better life than one that is lived unto God. Face to face with the creator of the universe. It brings perspective to this life so that we don't sweat the small stuff and are freed up to enjoy the fullness of joy in His presense and loving people because He first loved us-in a magnificent indescribable out of the box kind of way.

Lord You are better than all this world has to offer...

"God's word is not meant to build up our theology but to change our reality." -Beth Moore

This world is fleeting and it's small in the grand scheme of things, but for some reason God chose to become small in intervene in our lives.

He actually is pursuing you now- in this moment- and in many others if you just stop and look.

Is your life bringing you hard times? Desperate times? HE wants you to ask Him for help. He wants to rescue you. He wants to give you a sense of the fact, the truth, the REALITY that HE is your reality! He is creating a dependent relationship between you and Himself and He's using the tough times to do it. What do you have to lose? Choose HIM! Stop fighting the process He's taking you through and surrender to Him. Can you really afford to go through life without Him?

HE is your peace, your guide, your provider, your lover, your stronghold. your refuge, your rock, your Father, who loves you with a perfect love. He wants to express that to you and so He is allowing brokenness in your life (or possibly extravangant blessing, who knows?) to get to the heart of the matter:

YOU and I NEED JESUS.
You and I need the life of Jesus to be our reality: our Living, Breathing REALITY! He is alive in you and me who have surrendered our lives to Him, saying, "do whatever- to me, in me, through me, because I know you love me and your ways are best" We can't escape it, although we try to think that all we can see is reality... well, why do you think the Bible talks so much about faith?

When you go to the word, and to see how God works, and you read the letters about miracles and how the spiritual life is what will exist for eternit, and what has always been before the foundations of time- don't you see that HE is reality. That to focus on Him is true life?

Yes, we live here on this earth with "ordinary jobs, ordinary lives, and some not so ordinary" but the joy comes in seeing Reality Himself in all... and allowing Him to express Himself through the fruit in our lives at all times.

That's what makes an ordinary life not so ordinary. Living in the extraordinary presence of Jesus. Listening to the indwelling Word who speaks in numerous ways- we could not be convinced of the "other" reality if we didn't.

Walk in faith, not by sight, finding in His presence is the Fullness of Joy. . . no other life will bring what He brings.