Strength to Love

My girls and I walked to our Public Library this afternoon. I wanted to get a new book to read while I tag-a-long on my husband's business trip to New Orleans. (I have never been to New Orleans so I am sure I will gather lots of interesting blogging material while I am there. So stay tuned :-)

After spending close to an hour there looking through the book shelves I finally chose two books for the trip. I am almost embarrassed to admit that I never knew that Martin Luther King Jr had a book in publication. This is a man that I truly admire. So when I saw the book Strength to Love by Martin Luther King Jr, written in 1963, I had to grab it.

One of my constant prayers is that God would teach me to love as He loves. There have been people in my life that I have asked God to remove, but He always whispers in my heart, Nicole, if you can learn to love them, you can learn to love anyone.

If any man can shed some extra light on this subject of loving those that are not so nice to us and help me to learn to live in/with this kind of godly love Martin Luther King Jr should be able to.
I have only thumbed through this book and already I am floored by his words...

Let me share a passage of this book with you:

"I do not pretend to understand all of the ways of God or his particular timetable for grappling with evil. Perhaps if God dealt with evil in the overbearing way that we wish, he would defeat his ultimate purpose. We are responsible human beings, not blind automatons; persons, not puppets. By endowing us with freedom, God relinquished a measure of his own sovereignty and imposed certain limitations upon himself. If his children are free, they must do his will by a voluntary choice. Therefore, God cannot at the same time impose his will upon his children and also maintain his purpose for man. If through sheer omnipotence God were to defeat his purpose, he would express weakness rather than power. Power is the ability to fulfill purpose; action which defeats purpose is weakness.
God's unwillingness to deal with evil with an overbearing immediacy does not mean that he is doing nothing. We weak and finite human beings are not alone in our quest for the triumph of righteousness. There is, as Matthew Arnold wrote, an 'enduring power, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness.'
We must also remember that God does not forget his children who are the victims of evil forces. He gives us the interior resources to bear the burdens and tribulations of life. When we are in the darkness of some oppressive Egypt, God is a light unto our path. He imbues us with the strength needed to endure the ordeals of Egypt, and he gives us the courage and power to undertake the journey ahead. When the lamp of hope flickers and the candle of faith runs low, he restoreth our souls, giving us renewed vigor to carry on. He is with us not only in the noontime of fulfillment, but also in the midnight of despair."  

Do you see why I cannot wait to get into this book? I am actually having to force myself now to put it down so that I do not have it read before we leave Sunday. I am already sure that my twitter will be rockin' and my blogging will be abundant as I share all the lightbulb moments.

I also will be reading The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer this coming week. I am on edge waiting to dive into this book as well :-)

My husband will be speaking at the conference and will be attending workshops during the day so I will have hours of uninterrupted time alone this week to spend studying the glorious Word of my God and reading these two books by some mighty men of God and writing my heart out about what all God is teaching me.

Then the rest of the time I will have the great joy of spending hours of uninterrupted time with my man wondering the streets of New Orleans :-)

I will miss my girls, but they will be being happily spoiled rotten by their grandparents, so I shall not feel guilty about this time of absence from them. I am just going to enjoy the week with my God and with my Husband. I look forward to spending this week growing closer to them both and learning to love them both more deeply...

Hmmmm and also wondering what doors for the Word my God might open for me while I am there to share the Good News of Christ.