Heart Connections: Part One

You know this: God is Love.

Ponder the incredible, incomprehensible depth of this! God is a Love that encompasses all that is good: kindness, compassion, gentleness, justice, peace, grace, joy, tenderness, truth... This Love is huge. It's unfathomable. It's amazing and all embracing. God is Love.

And now ponder something else you know: God created you... that means YOU have been birthed by LOVE. When you think of something birthed by Love, what comes to mind? Well, that's you! You are beautiful and worthy. You are a precious child of God Himself - of Love Itself! And you were created to fulfill that birthright, living out a legacy of Love.

Visually it's something like this...

Now look at this tree, or think of an actual tree, as our metaphor. We bear the fruit - we possess the genetics - of what we are. But there is vital importance in the connections: Connection to the tree itself, and subsequent connections to other branches, twigs and leaves, are vital to bearing the fruit of who we are, and ultimately to fulfilling our birthright.

In John 15 we read of how Jesus shared this very concept with his disciples. He doesn't speak with the commanding language he sometimes used, rather we can almost feel the emotion and the depth of His love for his followers as he shares about the heart connection they have with Him. These disciples not only had been students of His Way, but they had become his dearest friends on earth. He shared with them His desire for them to remain connected to Him through understanding of their birthright and through bearing the fruit of that birthright by loving one another well.

His depth of love is the same for us. His desire for heart connections is the same for us. This is His Legacy of Love for us, so that we may live out the Legacy.

(Read John 15:1-17 now, picture Jesus sitting with you speaking this into your heart. Can you feel the depth of his love?)

Back to the image of the tree. Not only are we connected to the trunk, but to the tree as a whole. We are all connected to one another. Just as each leaf, twig and branch are all connected in some way every other branch, twig and leaf, so are we to one another. Some of us are very close to one another: we’re on the same twig. We live life together daily. Some of us are close, just on different branches nearby. And there are even many people we will never meet: we are on opposite sides of the tree, on different branches across the expanse of its foliage. Yet, all of us are one. All people have been created by God. All people have been birthed by Love. We are all family! Begin to shift your perspective and see all people as connected to you, as your family! Wow, how that can change how you relate to them! You see, our true connections with each other, our relationships to each other, are so important because they are our connection to God himself!

Where Love is present - acts of kindness, compassion, justice and truth - there is a true connection made. It is then that we are recognizing our birthright, our connection to the Tree, to Love, to God. Loving each other well is not only how we follow the example of Jesus Christ in sharing God with others (being little Christs, as the name Christian says) but also it's actually how we come to know God better!

God connections, Spirit connections, Heart Connections, connections of Love. They are the only real connections.

How can you strengthen your heart connection to the God?
And how can you strengthen your heart connections to others?
Do you see this as being important enough to really focus on and make needed changes?

Whether you see it as a lovely watercolor tree of hearts or the image of a mighty oak, our Heart Connections must be tended and strengthened always.

Keep growing. Keep living the Legacy!