Loving Not Just In Word But In Deed and Truth

Loving not just in word but in deed and truth

1 John 3:18 - Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and truth.

We llit the advent candle of love. We prayed about love. We have thought upon 1 Corinthians 13 for years.  I even wrote pages and pages on love.  Jesus' love is a love that lays his life down so we can have life here and forever. Love is God with us. God gives the abundant life and not that get up and make the donuts life. During the second week of Advent, God who is love, revealed himself in a broken stable half eaten by our dog.

While preparing for our day of school ahead, my son, Nehemiah who is five, said he was going to make something. In a few minutes, he made a beautiful Jesus in a feeding trough/manger. Within another couple of minutes, he had constructed a well designed stable. He had no pictures, no pinterest, and no magazines before him. He does however have a God given creative talent and he had a thought, and he went with what he saw in his mind. He then made a Joseph and a Mary out of foam paper. You can not see from the picture below but he also designed a head wrapping that is sitting behind Mary's head. During the creation of the stable, he was praising and singing songs to God. This made me rejoice to see him taking his faith and making it real. He was working out his faith not from someonelse's ideas but from his own idea that God gave him. Our family is intentional about our faith by planning devotionals, reading the Bible, and making crafts while we talk of Jesus, however as I have seen for many days, our God takes the unplanned and unintentional moments and shows Himself.

I was so proud of my son. I was rejoicing in God for this talent and for the blessing I have to be his Mommy. After this, the day got messy, real-life messy! I will spare you from the details but it was a day filled with too many errands, breaks, spills, training struggles and invasions of personal space. By the end of the day, it was discovered that the stable was eaten by our dog, yes, our sweet and lovable lap dog.

Mopsie chewed the whole stable and broke it to pieces and it was about to break my peace. Even the star was chewed. The one thing that made me rejoice the most and made me thank God this morning, was now in pieces on the living room floor. Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus still sleeping in the feeding trough, were untouched. I was so focused on the broken peaces, I just set Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus aside.

Our son was sleeping when we found the broken and chewed popsicle stick stable. Right before I found the broken stable, my husband and I were talking about training in Godliness. Specifically, we were talking about how to teach our son to respect boundaries. We were just agreeing that we both want to compile a resource of training based on what God says. When we are facing trials, tests and stress, we could have a resource from God's word that we had prepared for specific intent, as we prayed in that moment. Sometimes we are praying when something happens and sometimes chaos is happening all around and we cannot hear, breathe or remember what to train. I recommended ABC I Believe by Sally Hunt contains many Bible verses and stories about practical and real scenarios.

Seconds after our conversation, I found the partially chewed stable all over the living room floor. I hurried to pick up the pieces and find the fresh replacement sticks and hot glue. I was going to remake it with the help of my husband before Nehemiah woke up. Then, the still small voice stopped me. Yes, I could make this easier for my son and try to replicate it but I realized this would be lying to him and cheating him of responding how God would want him to respond. We were just about to look at a photograph from earlier in the day to try to replicate this masterpiece but instead I said "we can't do that, it would be lying."
In this very hard moment, God gave my husband the wisdom to ask "Do we have anything on forgiveness to read to Nehemiah." I thought I would have time to come up with something, to plan a lesson and then to train. "No, there is no time". We hear Nehemiah call from the top of the stairs "Mommy". Time was up. I said a quick prayer and asked God to help me with a resource based on His word to train.

God quickly brought me to a story on forgiveness. The story is about a girl that attempted to try on a girls necklace when all the beads fell off braking the necklace to pieces. Time was short. We leaned on God and not our own understanding of how to handle this dilemma. Tom read the story and recommended scripture to our son. Then I read something from ABC I Believe by Sally Hunt and a verse from the Bible about loving, not just in word, but in deed and truth. Not knowing the stable was destroyed by the dog, Nehemiah says he is going to go get his manger now. My heart thumps. The moment was here!!!! We said "Nehemiah that is what we wanted to talk to you about. We found in on the floor all broken. Mopsie broke it." I was praying for peace but almost thinking chaos would envelop us and threaten to take our joy. Joy remained. Peace remained. Our Hope in God remained. Love remained. God gave wisdom to ask Nehemiah to show us how to rebuild it. Nehemiah did not show any anger and he responded in a God glorifying way. He said "no problem. I didn't think the other stable was high enough anyway." He made a new one for us at home and made one for Daddy to take to work.

While our son made the new manger, we talked. I knew that dealing with our hurt and pain wasn't as easy as making a new stable. Something he loved and my husband and I enjoyed was destroyed and in peaces now. We talked about forgivness and not just loving in word but in deed and truth. Our son very calmly said "I am angry at Mopsie but I wanted a taller one too." He was able to express anger but in a calm, respectful way. Instead of retaliating, Nehemiah was able to see the situation as an opportunity to rebuild and to experience how God loves and forgives us.  We recognized in that moment Mary, Joseph, Jesus and the feeding trough were not bitten, yet only the stable and star were broken. Both Nehemiah and Tom said "we are glad Jesus, Mary and Joseph are ok." Nehemiah also remained self controlled which we do not always see when we try to handle situations through control, reason or our own understanding of how life works. He then said "I forgive Mopsie." We saw love in a family not just in word but in deed and truth. We also saw love from a Savior.

Again, I remember that the stable was destroyed but Mary, Joseph and Jesus were perfectly fine. Only the "temple", "building", "structure", "house" or "stable" can be destroyed. God in me cannot be destroyed. God with me cannot be taken. Thank you God that everything around us might fall down but you eternally protect us. 

Here is the new manger Nehemiah constructed.

Our God is a God of new beginnings. He resurrects things that are dead. He makes all things new. When things are eaten, destroyed, forgotten and lost, Our God remembers and redeems.  With eyes of hope, we focus on the eternal and unseen promises of God.  God gives us His power, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, to live as He wants us to live. No, we do not live according to rules for gaining favor with God but we instead live by the Spirit out of a heart that has been cleansed and made righteous by the blood of Jesus. He gives us the power and the love to obey not just in word but in deed and truth. At the end, my heart experienced God when Nehemiah took the broken pieces and offered a gift to Mopsie. The gift was a cross. The broken pieces turned into the cross - a symbol once again that God takes death and turns it to life. Broken pieces always have to go to the cross to turn to life.  May you take your broken pieces and broken heart to God, He promises you life.

Lessons Learned from A Dog Eating Our Son's Manger:
1. Although it may be easier to clean up messes for our children like rebuilding a half eaten manger set, it is better to speak truth and to allow the child to work through the seemingly hard things in life;
2. Pray first, call on Jesus' name and He gives wisdom;
3. What could have been chaos turned into peace and much learning because God gave wisdom and we chose to walk on what we thought was a hard path, only to find out it was easier than a path of doing what seems reasonable in our own eyes;
4. God took our feeble efforts at training and turned them into His glory;
5. God protects us. The whole stable around Mary, Joseph and Jesus were chewed, eaten and shredded but Mary, Joseph and Jesus remained untouched. This is quite a lesson since Mary, Joseph and Jesus would have been easier for our dog to chew. Likewise, our God has us in his hands. God is with us, His children, forever. Although we face much pain in this world, we will remain whole and protected by Him.
6. We cannot only say "I love you." We need to show love in deed and truth. In deed would be by our actions and in truth is by what God says is loving.

Scriptures to Medidate on:
Psalm 91
1 John 3:18
1 John 1:9
1 John 3:18