Love is

“By this all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)

Love is giving when you long to keep, love is a gentle word when you are feeling surly, love is doing a task you dislike because it is pleasing to another. Love is not easy: responding to love is easy. This is why the giving of love is a sign of discipleship: it is out of the ordinary.

Your joy comes in the thrill of a response to your giving – perhaps the response is long-delayed. Nevertheless love is the most powerful, persuasive force in the universe, for God is love and God is Creator and Lord. What is God’s nature is more powerful than any other nature – be it selfish man or evil spirits.

Make love your aim, make love your method, make love your primary expression, whatever is required – whether it be thought, word, deed or worship.

You need not feel love to be loving in the name of the Lord.

Soften, mellow, cling to Me.

I am your strength and shape, you see.

I need your love,

But your love needs Me.

Seek to follow the form I reveal in a thousand ways:

Do not let tendrils of your life

Shoot out into the world where they will be trampled, or cut off from your Support.

I need every vibrant part of you to be close

That I may nourish, protect and cherish all you are, and all you hope to be.

The purpose of your being,

The joy you seek,

All peace and love desired

Can mature and grow in just one place:

In the temple of your heart, entwined in the softness of my love,

The rightness of my way,

The strength of Truth –

Let us be so close that none can pry apart the separate strands of your life and of Mine.