Morning Thoughts

I love when I awaken not by my alarm clock but by half-asleep thoughts! This morning I was aroused with the phrase, "Compelled by love." I stirred and reached for my Itouch and wrote this down before falling back to sleep- You are compelled by what's inside you. Boat with a propeller. That was that and I snuggled back into the comfort of my covers and caught another hour of sleep with my alarm snooze going off every ten minutes.

The best thing about those morning thoughts is that it gives me something to ponder and dissect throughout the day.

Now, I didn’t really remember a verse about being compelled but of course Google knew...
1 Corinthians 5:14 says, "For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died." In other translations, compels is translated as controls, constrains, even overpowers. Webster’s dictionary translates compel to mean: to force, drive, or constrain.

I believe with all those word usages, we imagine God forcing us to do things. That is how most of the church lives anyway. I lived that way, thinking that God wants me to do this and He will love me if I do it. The lie: I am supposed to love God. And He will love me and bless my life if I am enough and if I do enough. The truth: God loves me. And when I understand His love for me that is what drives me...im not driven to be loved because I am already loved. Being loved, I love.

As I mentioned, I woke up with this thought-You are compelled by what is inside of you.

Think of the propeller of a boat. The definition of a propeller is this: A machine for propelling an aircraft or boat, consisting of a power-driven shaft with radiating blades that are placed so as to thrust air or water in a desired direction when spinning. WOW!

Now let’s make this propeller apply to our spiritual lives as our heart being compelled. When we surrender to Christ and give our lives to Him, it is giving him the ownership of the boat. He has say of what direction it goes, how fast it goes, and how slow it goes. But the propeller has an important role, and must work properly. The propeller represents the compelling of our hearts. And in order for it to not burn out and to work alongside of Jesus' guidance, it has to trust the lead of its Master. But even with the owner turning one way, the hidden propeller has the power to thrust into a completely different direction.

So although you have given ownership over, what is inside of you is what drives you. The hidden, unseen things in our hearts have power to detour our true destination. And many times they operate against instead of alongside of God's leading.

The church has done the things God has asked desiring to be loved instead of being compelled by His love. Only His love thrusts us into our calling (the ultimate direction of our lives) - to love Him in return and to love others as we love ourselves.

It is time to clean the propellers in the church; the motives, the wounds, the scars of our hearts. And it only comes by knowing God's love and character and being renewed day to day by His truth.