Help Me to Love

From my morning reading.

It requires far more of the constraining love of Christ to love our cousins and neighbors as members of the heavenly family, than to feel the heart warm to our suffering brethren in Tuscany or Madeira. To love the whole Church is one thing; to love--that is, to delight in the graces and veil the defects--of the person who misunderstood me and opposed my plans yesterday, whose peculiar infirmities grate on my most sensitive feelings, or whose natural faults are precisely those from which my natural character most revolts, is quite another.

Elizabeth Charles

From Daily Strength for Daily Needs
- Mary Tileston

This speaks of what goes on at home too. I act in ways at home that I never would somewhere else. Why is that? Why can I restrain myself in some places but not others?

I seemed more “Christian” before I had a wife and children. However, those additions helped show what was in my heart. I wasn’t quite as spiritual as I thought or maybe it was going deeper. God uses other people to show us our selfishness, bad attitudes, etc.

Like an onion, the layers are peeled off. Bit by bit God makes us like Him.

I rejoice that He strives with my flesh. I am glad that He doesn’t leave me like I am. I look forward to being more like Jesus.

Philip