Love is War - Hillsong United
"Turn my eyes to see your face, all my fears surrendered. Hold my heart within this grace, burden turns to wonder. I will fight to follow, I will fight for your love, owe my life forever to the triumph of the son of God, Jesus.
Lost and found. That is a country who's youth knows the lyrics to a rap song instead of the scriptures of Jesus who is calling out for our love. For most of us purity brings us back to family and love. Those innocent days spent coming home after school with the smell of pasta cooking for a family dinner. That first good test score in college, that first crush for a woman who actually lit up not only your eyes but your faith on fire, many moments of happiness. These were innocent times before your eyes witnessed true pain from a friends death or a meaningful dishonesty from a family member, friend, or peer.
Do what makes you happy, but seek God honestly. Admit your falls as a man or woman, as a young adult. Understand that I too faced many crossroads and not every choice was noble. However God kept my heart close to him, and I never had to endure the big fall(s) that would hinder me from an abundant life. You may feel lonely, but thank God for his touch on your life; because he is waiting on the right time, and the right person instead of an instant pleasure he will provide you a 50+ love.
As we grow up the true meaning of Love becomes more defined as we see why there are so few forever friends and a rare honest love between two. We discover the life of righteousness against choosing sin as we begin to see the outcome of our choices as life unfolds. We also realize the true frailness of our spiritual guide against an overbearing - sinful world. I wish that I could give every young child an aged moral compass that I have refined throughout the trials of my own life so that they could see the substance in a life close to the Lord as opposed to this world. I think God's glory & power lie in the journey towards our own humbleness towards God.
You will find this moral compass the more you seek God, and wisdom will reverse in terms of age because you will find him in your younger days as is said in the bible about the end times before the coming of Christ. You will face a crossroads of different significance at several points in your life even daily. I can't give you a book full of images from the effects of my choices but a lesson: Each time I ignored God's calling, or my faith in God's will I never felt fulfilled. If a man is in war, I would assume there comes a time to close off emotion in order to quantify the situation; and endure. This discipline is learned through the benefit of choosing good over evil. It is the same discipline that makes a good father, mother, husband, wife, president, overall human being. Without you, you will never be happy.
In the confusion you may grasp for a temporary pleasure or lust, a rebellion of certain walls that you thought were "exciting" to break down, but one day you will look back in young wisdom and put all of these pieces, your decisions even the smallest ones together. When an artist draws a picture he does so in stages. Sometimes we want to see the bigger picture without painting the strokes necessary to attain it. We see the end without the toil of our work. We were meant to wait until marriage because true love is a 1 + 1 = 1 combination, the temptation of your eye or solitude of mind may lead you astray but God's plan for marriage is and was to create a bond unbreakable by man or this world. For that bond to be true love, you have to embrace discipline and paint the small strokes to grow together without biting off the ending far too early on otherwise you have a breakable relationship built on impulse not heart. A very easy metaphor is the watering of a tree, you may not see the growth instantly but the small chances you have to take hold of discipline to choose right over wrong at a young age in life will fortify you as a fortress of purity and a man or woman destined for happiness and the right life, not later on after mistakes but early on in true love. God will always help aim your sail back straight, but it was never his plan for you to stray. That was your choice, and choices; but his love will always be there, because it prevails and he fills our life with hope again & again. Embrace him, and stop the carousel.
We live in a battleground for good & evil, a real-world war in terms of spirit. Like any soldier your equipment isn't a gun or physical armor, but a heart of purity that is refined through each subtle choice at a particular crossroads that you make. The world's culture will tell you to live freely, on emotion and seek not your inner discipline for an everlasting love but a fleeting wind of short-lived pleasure that has no foundation set in your heart. A world that denys God will tell you to act on temporary pleasure, to abhor good for "fun" and to ignore the patience of love. Even the most distant to good will tell you that chapters don't tell the story, it's the everlasting love of God that will put you on the right highway in life.
God's will doesn't include those choices that we make as sinners, but his mercy will rescue a true repentant heart. If a man says to you "but this was God's plan, when you erred you did so in honest fault". The only truth to this last sentence is honest fault, It is free will that allows us to choose sin or the world over God's path. It was never God's plan to fall from grace and choose lust, adultery, or the world over being patient towards the Lord's plan. We however are sinners, but we must understand the blessings of God if we remain true to him with an honest whole-heart.
Life is long, understand that you will figure it out and the sooner you seek God the clearer your ability to choose the right choices, and not waste any more time. God bless you all.
I turned 27 this November, a short 3 weeks ago and I guess my message to you in the youth is this:
Life is truly a puzzle of pieces not just of moments but of you and the outcome of your decisions. It is so difficult admittedly to connect the dots early on, but one day you will put them all together. You may not know the wisdom of life now because your living in a fast lane of social media, distracting music, and a country distant to our God in terms of our choices and chosen idols of fame, and money. You were given the freedom from our God to choose. Pride isn't just before the fall but it's before the surrender of our haughtiness and the moment in life where you hunger in thirst for God and not worldly things. It is when you will honestly feel a tear fall from your eye and thank God for his touch on your life to be able to humble yourself before the Lord and understand everything you are is from God. You will one day have the mind for love, the safety of an exit door to bad situations, the ability to open your own door to a balcony view of peace. When you can honestly stand in awe of your own humility and understand God's love against your once perceived knowledge, at this point you will finally understand that being a Christian isn't about labels but rather a heart that rejects filth from your ears, eyes, and mind. The moment your heart is connected to a goal of wealth over Godliness is a moment of declaration shouting your true distance from our God. It may seem like you are lost now and tied down by either your parents love or maybe circumstances you can't control, but understand that you have a lifetime full of decisions and moments right around the corner. You aren't meant to know it all right now, but if you trust in God with your heart and give him your whole-heart you have nothing to worry about.
