The Lord showed me that as we get closer to Him, He opens our eyes to see things as they really are with greater discernment and understanding. Our inner world is transformed and the outside world including people and everyday circumstances comes into focus. As we emerge from a kind of denial, what we perceive around us can bother us, upset us, unsettle us or move us to instant compassion, acts of kindness and thankfulness. Seeing people’s hearts and motives more clearly with newfound understanding and discernment can present challenges for love. Just because we see, doesn’t guarantee we’ll suddenly become loving, kind and accepting. Overcoming our former ways or habits of how we interacted with others and the world requires being proactive in choosing to love, forgive and accept unconditionally also known as Agape. For those who understand psychology, our former construct is overturned by His loving presence and it takes a bit of work to establish a new one or new habits of the heart and mind that reflect Him. In I Cor 13:11 is says, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” Being loved doesn’t necessarily make us loving, but shows us why we ought to choose to love or greatly inspires us to do so. It puts a wind behind our sails. Knowing His love, evokes behaviors and choices to love the unloveable and imperfect. So now we have a choice to forgive what we see and make peace with the world. In this is peace, contentment and certain quietude, the place where He dwells. The Lord chooses to love the cruel, the bitter, the angry and the irregular. The Lord loves the world He created and is filled with unquenchable hope. In Psalm 103:8-10 it says, “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will He harbor His anger forever; He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.” He doesn’t condemn, but saves. Aligning ourselves with His heart of unconditional love is powerful to change the world. The challenge to love is to make a decision to choose it and it can often involve longsuffering, not tolerance. It can require determination, conscious effort and selflessness. There may be pain and hardship. Love can be a sacrifice of inconvenience. Remember Him who died on the cross. Loving and forgiving doesn’t guarantee it will change situations, but we remain in love because we care for the relationships like He cares or at least we eventually endeavor to care. It’s not easy sometimes at all and especially when it comes to difficult people, strangers or life circumstances. The impetus to love starts with Him and we can ask Him to help us to walk in it which is our inherited divine quality. We aren’t left alone in our choice to love, forgive and accept, but we and Him together love by His ability and power to care. We and Him together endure. We have to be persistent in pursuing this to overturn old constructs. He showed me that we are kind of like breaking out of a shell, our former selves falling away to reveal the new creation that we are. This transition can be off putting because we’re faced with an inner battle to let go of the broken familiar way of interacting with the world and to flow in the new. We’re surrounded by imperfect people, an imperfect world, imperfect circumstances and He’s calling us to think like Him and do like Him. Loving, forgiving, praying and thankfulness is being in parallel with all of who He is. Stay in that zone and ask Him to bring you into it and keep you in it. Pray then, “Lord, I do love. Help the part that doesn’t.” Love not only applies to people, but also applies to jobs, finances, possessions, health, living situations, politics, the weather, etc., all of which require forgiveness, blessing, compassions, not judgments, anger and curses. It’s an attitude adjustment for the new person we are. It’s actively looking for the silver lining around every cloud. He causes all things to work out for good. We can ask for help for that too. Gal 5:22-25 – But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit as well. Luke 23:34 – Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” | 
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