Beyond Our Impatience, Loneliness, and Fear

What if loneliness has an invitation for a great discovery about God?
If you go to the grocery store on an empty stomach, you're a sitting duck! You buy everything you don't need. Doesn't matter if it's good for you; you just want to fill your tummy.

When you're lonely, you do the same — pulling stuff off the shelf, not because you need it, but because you're hungry for love.

For fear of not fitting in, we take drugs.

For fear of appearing small, we go into debt and buy the house.

For fear of going unnoticed, we dress to impress.

But all that changes when we discover God's perfect love. The perfect love that John says "casts out fear" (1 John 4:18).[LOVE]

Loneliness...

Could it be one of God's finest gifts?

If a season of solitude is His way to teach you to know His love, don't you think it's worth it?

So do I.

This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love (1 John 4:13-18).

[RETURN]

© Max Lucado
and
maxlucado.com.

From Traveling Light.
Used by permission.
All rights reserved.

About the author: Max is the best selling author of many many Christian books, a sought out speaker, and loving husband, father, and grandfather. Max is in real life what you see in his book -- someone who loves Jesus and loves the same kind of people that Jesus loves!

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