Dying then Loving

As we are in the process of preparing to meet with the young man and his family, (deciding where we will meet them, and preparing our hearts, bathing the time in prayer,) we thought it would be best to meet on neutral ground. However, as Jeff is making the arrangements, they decide that they want us to come to their home. Immediately everything inside of me stands on edge and screams , "NO!!" It didn't take me long to truly lay the decision down at the Lord's feet and ask Him to guide us in this, but I really did not want get together with them there. (I chose to let my personal desires "die.")

This morning, the Lord's joy returns to me during the time I've set aside for Him and I am completely overwhelmed with His love. I'm praising Him, thanking Him and my heart becomes so full. I begin praying over our time with this family tomorrow and His answer comes and I am completely stricken with His love and His grace. He says, "Go to their home, be full of My Holy Spirit, I will go before you and they will know of Me before you get there but it is you, (Jeff & I,)who will take Me to them. I want you to pray for them while you are there-pray in their home, pray over their home, pray for their family. BLESS THEM. Be a blessing as I have made you a blessing." As the Lord is giving me these directions, I wonder if my physical body is going to burst from experiencing the fullness of His love for them. He loves them so much and wants them to be able to accept His love. I must say this does bring a new dimension to the scripture that says, "...whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." (1 Corinthians 10:31) You know, they are our "neighbor" too-remember that message & conversation??? This will be an opportunity for us to match this knowledge with our actions and live out the Word.

So, now, having the answer, I begin praying & asking for God's favor, and claiming that 'if God be for us, then who can be against us; that the enemy will not prosper; that the Lord will go before us and be our rear guard.' And all the while during this portion of my prayer, I'm very aware that these people, this family is not our enemy but that the Lord is FOR them too. The enemy(ies) that I have been praying against are those mentioned in Ephesians 6:12We are not fighting against humans. We are fighting against forces and authorities and against rulers of darkness and powers in the spiritual world. (this scripture keeps coming back around.) AH-the Lord wants us to fight for them in the spirit. (I think that this situation is an odd way of bringing us to this. God's kingdom is so upside down compared to what we "know" in this world.) As I write this-I am remembering a prophetic word that was spoken over me in 2002. "I have made you to love the unlovely." Because of all that has happened and their roles in this whole thing, I have, many times, considered them "unlovely." UGH- my loving the unlovely is just as much about being Jesus to others as it is about Him showing me how very wrong my perceptions can be about others & the way God sees them and about how much He loves them.

I am highly anticipating the Lord showing up and showing off in many incredible ways.

One last thing~ I think I that we are supposed to take a gift of some sort. How weird is that? This is SO upside down...