| When we love God, we value what He values.— Shawn Bolz, Through the Eyes of Love |
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It is in the context of our relationship with God and others that we experience love. Not only that, but love gains its power when it is shared.
Out of love God created man and woman for each other. He proclaimed,
It is not good for the man to be alone. — Genesis 2:18
In 1 John 4:19 we come to understand that
we love because He first loved us.
God initiated a loving relationship with us and models for us what love does, how it looks, how it feels.
Seeing through God’s eyes of love will help us have healthy relationships, both naturally and supernaturally.
The eyes of love always look for relationship before agenda.
One way we can build a loving relationship with others is by valuing what they value. When we love God, we value what He values.
To show God’s love to others through the prophetic, we value what they value. When people feel like Christians treasure what they treasure, and that God treasures what they treasure, they’ll come en masse to hear more about God.
God helped this concept hit home for me when I was at a big conference and I felt Him highlight a family to me. It was a mom, dad, son, and daughter. The daughter was about seven, and the son was about fourteen. They were sitting in the second row, reserved for the staff of the church, so I assumed they were somehow associated with the leadership. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I stopped my message and said to them, “I am having a spiritual picture for you, and I want to share it now for everyone here to hear.”
What I didn’t know was that ushers had brought them to that row because the church was so full. They weren’t Christians and didn’t know what a vision or spiritual picture was. The couple was also on the verge of divorce.
So the joke was on me. I expected them to be open to hear from God because of where they were sitting. Normally people are happy when I say I have a word for them from God, but when I looked at their faces, I was confused. Wow, they don’t look super happy right now. This is weird. But I did feel God had spoken to me, so I said again, “I have a word for your family.”
I can’t even remember what the word was, but they did not seem impressed or receptive. In fact, the dad was giving me a look that said I should have a psychiatric evaluation. But this word was for them; it was not about me. So I was willing to adjust how I spoke or to do whatever I could to help them receive it.
Then I saw one more picture. It was even more absurd, but it felt like Jesus. He was totally aware of where their hearts were, and He was revealing to me something they valued.
I turned to the little girl and said, “I can see a picture of you holding something — your little pet, named Fluff-fluff. I’m sorry he died. But guess what? I see Jesus holding Fluff-fluff in His hands, like this,” and I held my hands close to my heart. “He’s holding Fluff-fluff and taking care of him. Fluff-fluff is in heaven with Jesus.”
I looked back to the family, trying to read their nonverbal communication. I’d just given a risky, very specific word! Would they be angry that I was talking to her daughter about a pet? What if she didn’t have a pet? What if their pet had not died yet? Who knows?
To my surprise the whole family began to cry — including the dad. I moved back into speaking my message, but afterward they came up to me. They told me the daughter’s pet Fluff-fluff had just died. When he had died, the girl had asked her dad, “Did he go to Heaven?”
The dad had answered, “No, honey, there is no Heaven, and your pet didn’t go there. There’s no place for your pet to go. Animals just die, and that is it.”
This had really wounded her heart. Kids are created to know and understand God, and there is a reason kids want to believe in heaven: it is true. To them, believing in Heaven seems more right and natural than not believing in Heaven.
If I’d been only looking at whether the dad had been right or wrong, I would have told the dad he was wrong. But when I looked at him through the eyes of love, I realized he wanted to offer his daughter what he considered to be valuable truth, which included his belief that God and Heaven did not exist. His beliefs were broken, but even in that brokenness, his heart desired to do the best thing for his daughter and to be honest with her.
After I shared the word about Fluff-fluff, the dad started to feel convicted — and I hadn’t said anything convicting. He knew there was no way for me to know about Fluff-fluff apart from God. I knew nothing about this family. They hadn’t even planned on coming to this event where I was speaking, so I couldn’t have talked to anyone to get information about them. No one could have told me about Fluff-fluff, how much the daughter valued her pet, or the impact that Fluff-fluff’s death had on her heart — no one except God.
This young girl was hearing for the first time how much God loved what she loved, even more than she loved it, and how God had prepared a place for her with the things she loved. And of course, her parents loved and valued her, so they were deeply touched by God’s love for her as well.
The dad realized that it had been his own disappointment in life that had caused him to become an atheist. This word helped to heal his own hurts as well.
Remember, things in this family were not going well. The couple was headed toward divorce, and this word brought hope and healing for other disappointments and areas of brokenness. The whole family became Christians that day, all because of a dead pet named Fluff-fluff. Not only that, the relationships between the family members were strengthened and could be restored to what God saw through His eyes of love when He looked at them. This experience opened their minds and hearts to a God who loves to bring restoration and hope.
This is why I just love the prophetic. It opens up our hearts and moves us past what we’re able to think about on our own. We can begin with a mind-set that is not ready to change, or not even considering it, and suddenly, we can see an option for the future that we couldn’t before.
Excerpted with permission from Through the Eyes of Love by Shawn Bolz, copyright Shawn Bolz.
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Your Turn
The prophetic can totally change a family’s, or a person’s life direction! Have you experienced a prophetic word that was a direct expression of God’s love? Come share about it on our blog. We want to hear from you! ~ Devotionals Daily
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