WHEW Tribe

I know I am a slow learner and I have come to realize that I have to be told some things over and over again, especially the hard things. Luckily, God is patient with me! He just gently reminds me that I need to get back to doing what He has told me to do, (numerous times before).  A few days ago I was just praying and listening for the Lord in a few areas and He nudged me and said, "You aren't loving the people." Ouch! He was right. I may have been loving them a little bit, but I was not loving them the way He calls us to love them. I was loving them based on my feelings, not based on scripture. He reminded me that before I can serve Him in any other way, I have to love them first. Of course when you want to know what God says about love, you go to His word. "Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one's achieve...

We all have an idol. The only question is... who is yours? Don't be too quick to answer. Pause for a moment and think about it. Think about what an idol is and what it looks like to worship one. According to Merriam-Webster, an idol is "an object of extreme devotion".  My Webster dictionary defines devotion as "attachment manifested by constant attention."  So I think it is safe to say that our idol is whatever or whomever we are giving constant attention to.  Would you agree? So let me rephrase my question... Who or what is getting most of your attention? Who or what do you spend most of your time on? Who or what do you spend most of your time thinking about? What is the reason you do the things you do? Be completely honest with yourself. Go back and reread those questions and be brutally honest in your answers. If you can't answer honestly, ask God to reveal the answer to you. There are so many things th...

What makes you feel loved? Do you ever really stop to think about this question? Pause for a moment and really consider it... ...seriously, consider it for a moment. What makes you feel loved?... Now, do you consider what makes those close to you feel loved? Those things you thought of that make you feel loved, do you do those things for others? Can you honestly say that you make an effort everyday to make your loved ones feel loved? I can't.

The season of love is almost upon us, you know what I'm talking about, Valentine's Day. As we think about the perfect gift for our loved ones, let's first think about love. It is so easy to get the wrong idea of what love is, or what we think it should be. We expect love to make us feel good, to give us those warm fuzzies and maybe even butterflies in our stomachs. We expect those that love us to know what we like and get it for us, to know what we need and do it for us, and then we will love them back. But that is not what love is all about. Love isn't a feeling. Love is a verb. Let's take a look at the scriptures and see what they say about love. You know where we are going right? Yep, the love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13.  " 4  Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5  or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6  It does not rejoice about injusti...

Have you ever been so moved by someone that you couldn't stop thinking about the encounter with them? Moved because just being around this person made you feel special, they made you feel important and loved? I had an encounter like that recently and it touched my heart so much that I just could not stop thinking about it.  Let me fill in a few details for you...

Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the usual, ordinary tasks of our everyday life and let the romance in our marriage take a back seat.  Well, it is for me anyway. I have a tendency to be a task oriented person and although that helps get my to-do list done, it can also mean that I don't take time to work on relationships (with my husband or my children). It isn't that I don't love them or spend time with them, but I often forget to put in that extra effort. You know, that extra effort that goes beyond just taking care of their everyday needs. That extra effort of little things that can make a big difference and really show them they are important to me. More important than my to do list. I've been married 19 years and we have a great marriage! But in those 19 years I've learned that keeping the fire going takes work.  It takes that extra effort - but it's so worth it! Rekindling the fire can make a good marriag...

Are you guilty like me? I have a tendency to glance at people, even when I am speaking with someone. I can't say I  always  look someone in the eye, do you? I have a horrible habit of not giving the person my full attention when we are talking. But do you know what happens when you look someone in the eye, you make them feel special. Even if it is just for that brief moment of conversation, they feel noticed. Listened too. Respected. I really am trying to be better at this. I know how important it is and I'm working on it. As God's children we are called to love others and if we can't even take the time to look them in the eye, are we really loving them? If I'm talking to someone and the whole time they are looking around the room, paying attention to other conversations and checking out what everyone else is doing, I certainly don't feel like my conversation with them is important. Yet, I've been guilty of this very thing many times. Thank God for grace ...