I read a blog entry by a singer I really like today, Betsy Walker. It’s short so I’ll post it:

Oct 21st, 09

The second is like it? What does loving others have to do with loving God? Apparently everything. God is saying that it is impossible to love Him apart from loving others. And perhaps there is no point in stretching up our hands in worship if we do not regularly stretch out our hands to our neighbors. Hmm.

Spend some time meditating on Psalm 15 this week. It says, “Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right, speaking the truth from sincere hearts. Those who refuse to gossip or harm their neighbors or speak evil of their friends. Those who honor the faithful followers of the Lord, and keep their promises even when it hurts. Those who lend money without charging interest, and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent. Such people will stand firm forever.”

Yesterday, I was running with Emily (our new roommate…maybe a post about that later…) and we were talking about our lives and how they may or may not be panning out the way we had always thought they would. We are definitely enjoying life, but very much in the way of warily looking around thinking, ok now what’s next,  because I haven’t guessed it correctly yet. I think the reason for that is God knows better where we fit in any given season of our lives. Maybe that’s why sometimes we end up in places where we look around and think: why am I here?

She made a good point in saying that when we truly live into who we are, regardless of where we are, we end up blessing others.

Maybe giving is really that simple. It seems like it should be something big, special, and recognizable. But if we are just being ourselves in the place we are day to day, we may not even notice how we bless others with our smiles, our words, our friendly gestures, our attitude, our hard work, our service, our cups of coffee, or our laughter. It may not seem like enough to us, but to others, it’s a lot.

Maybe God doesn’t want love to be like this billboard of our generosity and sweetness and good deeds that people can see from everywhere and admire and compliment. Maybe he wants it to be more like post-it notes of kindness. Lots and lots of post-it notes. Yes, I like that. I love office supplies so I really like that.

You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less.
That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought. matthew 5