Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace

Because of a Leadership Training in Richardson, TX on Saturday, I drove down a few days early to be with my kids in Frisco. Being in the Dallas area when the tragic shootings took place on Thursday night, hearing the heart-wrenching details of the police and civilians killed or injured, brought memories back to me when I was in my 10th grade Geometry Class at South Oak Cliff High School here in Dallas. Over the loud speaker came the inconceivable words of our Principal, "President Kennedy has been shot and killed". It seemed our world momentarily stood still. We were in shock. How could something so appalling take place in OUR city, Big "D"? Then a few years later, in 1968, the terrible atrocities of the civil rights riots made us feel that our country was falling apart. I remember Martin Luther King's words just before his assassination in 1968: "Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

The answer then and the answer for Thursday night and all other diabolical killings and injuries, is still the same, though it almost sounds lofty and unattainable: Love is the answer. In the photo here is a Dallas area man, Jimmy Lee Robinson, who gives his time to spreading good news in the form of homemade signs held up with positive and motivating words. In light of these last few days, when I saw him walking down Main Street, here in Frisco, I made a U-turn to get a photo of this day's message: "I love you". I hugged him. He's my brother. We're on the same team. We're in the same family of God. We all want and need love -- even those misguided, mentally bent individuals who take people's lives. If they had known love, perhaps their decisions would have been different.

Whatever message we should be conveying -- in good AND bad times -- boils down to one primary theme....LOVE. We are faced with a choice. We can let the horrible tragedies weigh on us until we are angry and in fear and we ask..."How can LOVE be the answer when there are those who are filled with so much hate, bitterness, sick minds and spirits?" It's the same answer when they killed and crucified our Savior...."Lord, forgive them for they know not what they do." That's love. Oh that we can give that love.

I said it last week and I say it again. "It's time for us to love and pray passionately." Yesterday, at the meeting I attended, the speaker prayed these words of St. Francis of Assisi. If we took these words, meditated on them and sincerely prayed them with all our hearts, just maybe we could be the catalyst for change:

"Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life. Amen.

Love is the Answer to EVERYTHING!

Day 29 in this Month of Love -- Love is the Answer to EVERYTHING
This day marks the last day in my celebration of this month of love. Why would God want me to post about love this month? And perhaps a more telling question, why would our enemy NOT want me to post about love? Love is the answer to everything that this crazy world needs more than anything, and, of course, the enemy of our souls wants to keep us from loving. But, we refuse his tactics and lies, and with everything in us, we choose to love. I want to end this month of love with a strong nudge to all of us to take these messages of love beyond today and this month to a love that lasts a lifetime. A love that is generational. A love that is universal. May we become radical about the love we have for others that will cause this world to be shaken up with the power of love.

Mother Teresa said, “I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, He will not ask, 'How many good things have you done in your life?' Rather He will ask, 'How much love did you put into what you did?”

Since the beginning of time, the enemy has done his best to try to eradicate love from this earth. He keeps failing at it. One of these days he'll get it -- BIG TIME! He's doomed. Love created this world and all that is in it. Love created you and me. Love will win in the end, for God is love and His love is unchangeable, unending, and best of all -- UNFAILING.

Love will still conquer any and every matter of life. May love be our driving force as we pursue it in every way. What if our world could be changed by the measure of love we give. Where do we start? Remember the "love is" chapter -- 1 Corinthians 13? Putting the love chapter in the "first person" tense and REALLY strive to live it and be it -- that's where......
OUR LOVE IS.....
We determine to be patient and kind.
We refuse to be envious and boastful.
We will not be arrogant or rude.
We will not insist on having to have our own way.
We will not be irritable or resentful.
We will not rejoice at wrongdoing.
We always rejoice with the truth.
We bear all things.
We believe all things.
We hope all things.
We endure all things.
Our love never ends.

Love is the answer to everything. 1 John 3:18 "Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth."

Let's change our world with LOVE! I love you and you and you.....pass it on!