What Is Your Answer

I shared the fol­low­ing ear­lier today on Facebook.

“I have been deep in thought today more so than usual. Lots of things going on in life. I believe my Heav­enly Father asked the fol­low­ing ques­tions. ‘What dri­ves you? Where are you get­ting your moti­va­tion, pas­sion, and strength? What is that passion?’

I have an answer to the ques­tions but to see it I’d like you to par­tic­i­pate and give you…”

This is My Answer

I have come to believe my life is about love. The expres­sion and accep­tance of it is as diverse as are the peo­ple on the planet earth.

I will say this there are a lot of peo­ple, includ­ing me, that express love but it is not true love. It may be for the most part well intended but it really doesn’t meet the test of true love. I can say this because I live it and under­stand that I can only express love to the depth that I know of it.

I believe the begin­ning of under­stand­ing true love is to accept Gods love for us. It is pure, unselfish, giv­ing, and with­out any con­di­tions what so ever at all. Think about this. When you were a teenager, you saw some­one that piqued your inter­est and you began a rela­tion­ship with them.  Days and weeks passed. You came to know that per­son for who por­trayed as a whole and the emo­tional feel­ing of what we call love invaded your life. You began to love that per­son mostly because they accepted you for who you por­trayed to them. Later that love is tested. He or she does some­thing and it does meet the cri­te­ria for lov­ing them. The accep­tance is short lived and so is the love that existed. The expres­sion of love is a only a tem­po­rary accep­tance of each other laden with con­di­tions which need to be met.

Later in life, we find the spe­cial per­son. The con­di­tions for con­tin­ued love are met and we get mar­ried. The hon­ey­moon for some lasts a life­time, yet there are some that don’t expe­ri­ence a hon­ey­moon at all. Con­di­tions change and so does the love. You can see a pat­tern developing.

This is what we will con­tinue to expe­ri­ence through­out our lives. We will always expe­ri­ence con­di­tional love unless we find some­one who loves us with­out any con­di­tions what so ever at all attached to their love. I have to say that per­son found me! I met God back in 1983. I knew him just like you know me. We spoke to each other from a dis­tance. I had read about him and heard oth­ers speak about him. Our rela­tion­ship was really one sided. There was a period where he wanted to hang out but I didn’t. I always said I was too busy or I was tired. I was work­ing and get­ting things done.  When the end of the day would come, I would be exhausted men­tally and phys­i­cally. I just pushed on through life.

 I really didn’t under­stand my rela­tion­ship with God. It was about nine years ago, I was doing a word study. I wanted to see what words were used most in the Bible. I put post– y– notes on the pages near the text that stood out to me. I con­tin­ued through six or seven books in the old tes­ta­ment. The one pat­tern that stood out is that love was used a lot. A LOT! It is used more than any other word from what I can remem­ber. I stopped the project and I began to research about the qual­ity of God love and why.

The short and the long of it is this. Through my life’s jour­ney I found that God loves me and you no mat­ter what. There are no con­di­tions to His love. I should be quite appar­ent of the uncon­di­tional love he expresses and exhibits every day. He died on the cross for us. Who among us is will­ing to give his life for all peo­ple. I am will­ing to give up my life for my wife. I was also will­ing to do so for my coun­try. I am not will­ing how­ever to give up my life for all peo­ple. Yet God did! I began to find His love grow­ing inside of me. My atti­tudes and prej­u­dices are chang­ing, (I have never been racially prej­u­dice by the way), and how I see my life is chang­ing too. I began to under­stand how much God loves us and what he wants us to do.

Today, as best I can, I love God back. I am thank­ful for the abil­i­ties that I have, the artis­tic vision, even though my eye sight isn’t 20/20. I am who I am because of Gods’ love for me.  I found my energy and strength and pas­sion all come from him. I don’t have it with­out him.  The depth of uncon­di­tional love I have for my wife and loved one’s is some­thing God has given me. I have learned to receive it by hav­ing an inti­mate rela­tion­ship with Him. I don’t think there is any other way, oth­er­wise this change in my life know­ing Him would have come a long time ago.

Last but not least is the knowl­edge my rela­tion­ships do affect the cre­ativ­ity and pas­sion and ulti­mately what I do with my life. If affect what I see and how I see it. God Bless You!