"Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread..."

In one of her books about union with GOD through prayer, Madam Guyon wrote: "We must live in prayer, just as we must live in love." It has taken me much longer than it should have, but I think I finally get it. I know I have either heard "it" or read "it" in one form or another, looked at "it" from this multiple angles more times than I care to think about, but here is the reality - "I" can't! That's it, the "it" I am referring to. Deep in my heart I long to love better, to love well, even to love all, including my enemies, but "I" can't.

There is a great sense of relief and peace that comes when we finally embrace the truth. That thing we've pursued, or been told we need to achieve, even when good, can be a ball and chain fastened around our hearts if it is something we simply can not do. While a never give-up attitude has its' place, and is even encouraged in scripture ( asking, seeking, knocking, ), the reality is that true authentic Christian virtues can never be produce in us, by us, and one of these virtues is authentic love. Oh sure, we can love to a degree, everyone can, but Christ-like love, one that allows us to truly love our enemies; to remain humble and quiet in the face of severe opposition and personal attack; that truly makes us salt and light, this kind, this depth, comes only from God. But here is the difference in my thinking. I am now convinced that the love I need, the love I desire to love with, is not deposited in my heart in vast measures that I live off for weeks or months or years before running out. Did not our Lord pray, "And give us this day our daily bread..."? This is not a prayer to cover just our physical needs because quoting the Old Testament Jesus reminded His listeners, "Man shall not live by bread alone..."  If I am going to love in the way God wanst me to, in the way the Spirit within me wants me to, in the way I long to, I must learn to surrender to the reality that "I" can't. I have to go to GOD, and go daily, if not moment by moment, for the love I need to love with.

Ahhhh, what a relief to confess that "I" can't, that "I" never could, that "I" was never even asked to. The love I need comes to me from GOD, through Christ and when I find I don't have the love I need in any given situation all I need to do is call on the One Who has what I need.

Lord, today I ask You to pour into my heart the things I need for this day, so I can be salt and light in the places I go. In Jesus' Name, Amen!