I Have Been Blessed

I have been blessed.  Love this song.  I have been blessed with an imperfect family, but it's mine.  I have been blessed with good friends over the course of my life.  I have been blessed with good therapists.  I have been given many blessings, and many struggles, but even in the struggles there are blessings.

I've grown up in a family that is dysfunctional, and there is emotional, verbal abuse, there has been times when I thought to just run away.  But when I had nowhere else to go, it was the same family that took me in.  Then there was the family secret, that shook me to the core, and I really wasn't feeling loved or blessed, but it has shaped me into who I am today.  I have been given a diagnosis, a label, but in knowledge is power, and I am blessed to be able to figure out how to deal with this new information to overcome it.  In all my struggles there are blessings, even though they did not feel like blessings at the time.  God uses everything, even the very worst things for the good.  I'm still alive, another blessing, after my struggles with suicidal thoughts.

I may be single and living with my family, but it's a blessing in a way because I need to focus on me, and getting healthier, before trying to focus on being in relationship with another.  Just some of the many blessings.

 

Love for Jesus, or duty & obligation

And Jesus replied to them, It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.  ~Luke 5:31

In my reading this morning, this verse stuck out to me.  It's true, it is those who are sick that need Jesus.  Those who have sinned and those who have problems, not those who think that they have it all together.  I've been thinking a lot lately about Love and Jesus.

Wondering how to get love for Jesus into my heart...how to get that Jesus really loves me from head knowledge to heart revelation.  How is it that we come to love Jesus, madly, passionately, Love Jesus?  Not just accept that Jesus is, and that we believe Jesus for good things...but an all out love for Jesus.

I'll be honest, I've been saved, and I am a Christian, but I'm not in love with Jesus.  In fact, honestly, there are many times that I forget to consult Jesus about my day, my plans, my dreams.  It's sad to say but it's too easy to go about my day caught up in my problems and never giving Jesus or eternity much thought.

I try to do right, and I try to do devotions, and read through the bible in a year or two, and do the things that religion requires of us.  I'm trying to get through the readings and I want to do devotions, but my prayer time is about non-existent, and I'm not passionate about any of it.  I want to get closer to Jesus...but I'm not sure how to move to doing it from a sense of obligation or duty, to doing it from a sense of love and longing for more of Him.

Tell me how do you get there from here?