Love – Shay's Place

We’re almost at the end!!! Today’s piece is by another special friend of mine. He’s one of my mentors and one of my biggest encourage-rs. Let me publicly acknowledge you and appreciate what you do behind the scenes – Thank you!!! You can follow him on Facebook (Frank Oje) for daily posts – little tidbits that can get you through the day or week or even the whole month!

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Before we dive in, I want to send a shout out to my grandpa too!!! 😀 Happy birthday!!!! (even though I highly doubt he’s reading this 🙂 ) Anyway Ganaija fam, its Frank Oje with ‘Love always hopes’!

Love is a beautiful thing, no matter how you feel, in spite of whatever has happened to you. Let’s not change it! haha! Did I hit you below the belt? Before you bite me, just listen and read a few more lines, please? :P-)

The consequences of loving varies across board and lines of experience. Some people have a “Cinderella” kind of story to tell, while others can easily relate to a full epistle of how Cynthia was stood up at the airport in her wedding gown for a husband that never showed up! Such is life.

Recently I found a woman I would like to marry (again) and I thought it wise not let my mum know yet (for the umpteenth time), so it doesn’t look like I enjoy dashing her hopes. But when I went to visit her, I could only hide my feeling for a few hours (or minutes maybe?) before I started spilling -like when you open a pretty excited Coca-Cola bottle. Yeah, Love is one of such feelings that really can’t be hidden or contained for too long! You can’t buy a dream car and park it in the garage for a week. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. I was only trying to explain why I had to worship in another church the previous Sunday when I found myself “jumping tracks” in my schematics. Lol.

Contrariwise, while my mum was dancing in jubilation that her prayers have been answered, my talkative brother quickly reminded her; “mama, don’t be too happy yet, this could be like one of such days when we hoped that love had finally come but at the end, it was dashed. But mum rebuked him and said; leave me and let me be happy. It doesn’t matter how long it lasts if it keeps hope alive. Moreover, faith is the evidence of things hoped for… which means without hope, faith has no stand! In other words, there is a connection between faith and hope and that connection is an “evidence” that ensures that whatever you have faith in, you must hope for. It suffices to say that; whatever love battle you may have seemingly lost as a result of failed expectations, you didn’t fail. It could be destiny’s path to true love, a fail forward process to the real thing (sometimes, for reasons best known to God).

Does true love really hurt? You may want to ask. Yes it does sometimes a lot of times. Hurting on the cross (for our sakes), God, who so loved the world, felt it too. They say ‘Its people who you love that hurts you the most’. Or, it’s a ‘thing’ you love that you repeatedly go through pains to have (is labour pain flying through your mind? like right now? 🙂 ) Well, at the end “LOVE CONQUERS ALL”. So why should we continue to love amidst mixed feelings or expectations? Hmmm, because ‘HOPE’ comes with the package! Just like ‘Faith’, we have hope that sooner or later, our expectations will be met. Love always hopes. If it appears to be failing, try plugging in some more hopes. It may not result in your ‘immediate or most desired expectation when applied to humans, just remember; Even God who is love, has set before you; life and death, and He is expecting, advising and ‘hoping’ that you choose LIFE! But for free will’s sake, He can only hope!

#KeepHopeAlive

I remember in secondary school when I told a friend I was afraid to love so I didn’t get my heart broken – He said ‘Don’t worry the next person will mend it’. I couldn’t have said it better myself – KeepHopeAlive!!! Head over to facebook and like the Ganaija page. Tomorrow’s our last guest write-in for Love One-Four. I’m excited!!!

‘’Love never fails.’’

Ghanaijachic.

Finding you in God's word, Guest Write-Ins, Holiday Levels!!!

Love One-Four 16.12

Posted on June 29, 2016July 1, 2016 by ganaijachic

In case you missed the last posts:

Love does not dishonor others

Love is not self-seeking

Love is not easily angered

Love keeps no record of wrongs

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth

Love always protects

‘… always trusts …’

We’ve been dissecting love for the past 11 days and we’ve gone from needy love to fairy tale love and everything in between! Today we’re dealing with ‘love always trusts’- Trust being a major issue in our generation. Before I give away too much, let me introduce our writer for today – Her name is Vivien! She’s a pretty and amazing Jesus lover that blogs at thefreetribe.com

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After reading I’m sure you’ll agree with me that this free triber is a great writer so here’s her love one four piece:

Trust. That is one thing I’ve always given out perhaps too easily and I’ve been betrayed and fallen victim to scammers because of it. One would think that this attribute would translate into my relationship with Jesus but the situation is quite on the contrary (maybe because humans have broken my trust quite a number of times?). In my daily walk with Him, I’ve realized that trusting… really trusting Him is HARD.

What does it mean to trust someone? To trust means to firmly believe or have confidence in the reliability, truth or integrity of a person. That word ‘firmly’ sounds quite stubborn doesn’t it? Now, I don’t believe that we should hand over our trust to every Tom, Dick and Harry. Nope. You would be setting yourself up for betrayal and heartbreak if you do so. The Bible admonishes us to guard our hearts… To guard something means taking on an active and defensive role to protect something. We have been given the Holy Spirit to help us discern and know who to trust and who not to. I know that if I had sought the opinion of the Holy Spirit and if I had given heed to His little tug in my spirit, I would not have given my trust to anyone who would end up betraying me.

For those in our inner circle like our family, close friends, and especially those with whom we share some level of spiritual, physical and emotional intimacy with (like the guy/lady we are in a relationship with, our spouse or our fiancé/fiancée), it is important to trust them. There is no point being in a relationship with someone if they have proven over and over that they cannot be trusted because “love – trust = frustration & unfulfillment”. The only way we can totally free our significant other to love us unconditionally is by giving him/her our trust. If you cannot trust him/her, you would always be jealous, suspicious, insecure, fearful, worried and possessive and this can drain the life out of any relationship. I know you’ve been hurt and betrayed in the past but the beautiful thing about walking with God is that He constantly urges us to let go of our past and move into the beautiful future He desires for us.

1 Corinthians 13:7 (MSG) says that love

“Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.” (Emphasis placed by me).

Throughout the scripture we see our Heavenly Father calling us to trust Him, assuring us of His love, telling us of his power and might and ability and all of this is to inspire us to trust Him always. Page by page in His word we see Him inviting us to ‘taste and see’ that He is good, invoking trust for Him in our hearts. I mean, who better is there to trust than the one who created you Himself?

I love that scripture in 1 John 4:18 (ERV),

“Where God’s love is, there is no fear, because God’s perfect love takes away fear. It is His punishment that makes a person fear. So His love is not made perfect in the one who has fear.”

Our Abba wants us to be secure in His love for us! He wants us to know that his love for us is perfect and unconditional so we should have no fear that He would leave us or not keep to His word! It is the desire of the devil to make us not to trust in God’s love for us. He wants us to be insecure about it. That’s why he torments us with his lies like, “After that thing you did, do you think God will answer your prayers?” “With the way you keep gossiping after several decisions to stop doing so, are you sure you’re really a child of God?” but honey you’ve got to resist him! That’s what he wants, for us to stop trusting and start doubting our Abba so that he can fully come in and destroy our lives.

I mean, God doesn’t just love us like a one-size-fits-all kind of thing… He loves us personally, each and every one of us. He knows us by our names and knows the number of hairs on our head. He even stores up our tears in a bottle! Our tears are important to Him too; it doesn’t get more intimate and attentive than that, if you ask me!

I’m going over all of this to remind you and me to trust Him because He loves us. Trust is something that is built over time through constant relationship. If God is asking you to leave that job, trust Him that He has something better for you. If He is calling you to step into your calling or purpose, trust that He who called you will sustain you till the end because He alone knows the future. Love always trusts God to come through, no matter how bleak the future may seem. I’m sure there are times when we have not trusted our partners or those close to us, there are times when their words have not matched their actions and so we are afraid to let go and open up and be vulnerable to avoid being hurt again. This is because they are human and there is only so much that they can do. But Abba is asking us to be confident in Him and totally rely on Him because He is perfect and only Him can give us the perfect love our soul desires. Man will always fall short.

Instead of constantly trying so hard to hold His hands and keep slipping, why not trust that He is holding you up with His right hand and will never let go? Instead of constantly feeling like you do not love Him enough, why not accept His perfect love for you and ask Him to teach you how to love Him? When we trust Him completely, we come to realize that He never ever fails. His love never ever fails. It may not seem like it right now but you will look back on your life someday and see that trusting Abba really paid off.

I pray that His spirit works in us to inspire our trust in Him more and more. And I pray that He leads us in our trusting others so that we do not open up our hearts or give our trust to the wrong people.

The FreeTriber

I honestly can just pull put like five or ten quotes from this piece that I want to use as my wall paper or screen saver to keep reminding me that I need to trust in God no matter how many times man might fail me. Another thing, don’t give up on humanity. Trust that man can be good and trust that true love indeed never fails. Don’t stop loving guys,

‘’Love never fails.’’

Ghanaijachic.

Finding you in God's word, Guest Write-Ins, Holiday Levels!!!