Relationships

At Love’s Impulse

One of my all-time favorite hymns is “Take My Life and Let It Be” [affiliate link]. This moving prayer  rightly places our hearts and our lives where they belong – at the altar of sacrifice for our Heavenly Father. It’s a melodic exhortation to recognize that all we have needs to used for Him.

Within the song, there’s a powerful line that reminds us that worship not only occurs in church, but with how we treat others for worship is rightfully proclaiming who God is.  The second verse begins:

Take my hands, and let them move

At the impulse of Thy love.

These words are a startling recognition that our actions towards each other should not begin with our feelings but with the prompting of God.  It’s a hard truth. Because God is love, we must love (See I John 4:9).We want to act in accordance with how each other deserves, not in accordance with the graciousness that the Father has shown us. We want to behave as a response to the actions of another, not as a response as to His actions on the cross.

However, as I’m often reminded, we’re all broken. None of us are without the need of a Savior. And since He sacrificed everything as an act of His love, perhaps we can sacrifice our assessment of another’s deservingness as an act of our love. If not for the other person, for the fact that our Father’s love towards us compels it.

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Relationships

Praying with Purpose

In Christian circles, it’s not uncommon that when someone shares a tough situation that’s happening in their life, that the person they are conversing with replies “I will pray for you.” Or an individual in need will tell their friends “I have a prayer request” and will then reveal whatever is causing their need. In both cases, one person often assents to pray for another and yet that agreement is only a passing commitment, as they quickly go upon their merry way and forget the promised prayer.

Recently, I’ve been convicted that sometimes we’re even more passive in our prayer lives with the people who we are closest with. Perhaps it’s because we feel that we already know what’s going on in their lives, and so we don’t bother to ask. Or perhaps it is because it makes us feel uncomfortable to ask our spouse, our sibling, our child or our best friend on a regular basis how we can be praying for them. We may offer general prayers on their behalf, but how often to we stop to discover what God is teaching them, how He is refining them and how we can be encouraging them with prayer to respond rightly to Him? How often do we know specific areas that they are struggling with and for which they desire prayerful intercession? Do we, in other words, pray for them with purpose or do we pray with passive intent?

I’m convinced that if we more regularly and intentionally lifted up those we loved to God, that God would use those purposeful prayers to accomplish much for His kingdom. And I’m convinced that our relationships would enjoy a richness that they most likely currently lack, for we would be interceding on their behalf to the Maker and their Savior. We wouldn’t be praying in general terms for God’s will for their lives (which is good), but we would be asking for His help in specific areas where they are struggling. We would be bringing them to His throne with focused intent We would be asking for Christ’s presence to be manifest in their lives, where they are in need of it most.

What could be more purposeful than that?

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