Pursuing my heart

       Last weekend God gave me a reminder that though I may become lax in my vigilance to pursue his heart, he never becomes lax in pursuing mine.  For the last three years I have been attending the Extraordinary Women's conference when it comes to Tulsa.  I have always enjoyed the speakers, the Friday night concert, and the worship.  This year however the topic of the conference spoke volumes to my heart.  The topic was Enduring Love.  If you have read any of my other posts you might remember that in December I posted about a conversation I had with my husband about my lack of love for a person I was having particular struggles with.  I posted about it and then really put that information on the shelf of my heart to deal with at a later date.  But you know I really did not deal with it in fact, I more or less ignored it.  Then in early February in one of my daily readings I came across 1 Corinthians 13.   The love passage.  I wanted to think that this scripture was just regulated to marriage because let's face it for most of us one of the only times we even hear it is at a wedding.  But on this day as I read it and I came to the part in verse 5 where it says "Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged (NLT),"  I had to admit that in the love passage, Paul was not just speaking about how to love your spouse.  Still, I barely let that revelation seep down enough to do any good.  It was just too uncomfortable to admit that I am irritable with others and I do keep record of being wronged (a long record).  Now fast forward to last weekend..   Can you guess which scripture was the reference for the theme of the conference?  1 Corinthians 13:13 "Three things will last forever- faith, hope, and love- and the greatest of these is love. (NLT)"
         Now even though it may sound like God was "guilting" me about my lack of love for others that could not be farther from the truth.  I know that  1) he does not "guilt" us to do anything (that is not his way) and 2) I have found that reoccurring moments of the same topic are his way of wooing me to stop and let him show me an area where I need him more.  Well, I had set aside a whole weekend for the purpose of stopping and letting him show me.  I can tell you that he did not waste one moment of it!  During the conference while listening to the speakers over and over he pursued my heart and reminded me of his great love for me.  That his banner over me is love.  That he loved me first.  That he wants to love on me so much that his love would fill up all the parts of my heart and spill out to others.  I can be loving with others because God has given me such a great gift of love!  He does not forget to love or pursue me even when I have allowed my routine to slow down my pursuit of him.  I love him and he loves me and from his love I am able to love others more.  I could go on but I will just close with a scripture that I have been reflecting on this week  "Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.  No one has ever seen God.  But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us." 1 John 4:11,12 (NLT)