Five Stones: The Essentials of Manning-UpSample

Stone 5 – Love: Brings Refreshment.

“Let all that you do be done in love.”
1 Corinthians 16:14. ESV

Love is the greatest of essentials for manning-up.

Unfortunately, few men can truly say they’ve experienced God’s love themselves.

When we struggle with knowing God’s love, we also struggle with sharing His kindness and doing all that we do in love. We can try to be better men, devoted husbands, great dads, loyal friends and ‘good Christians’. But if we are not firstly finding ourselves in God’s love, then we keep rolling the rock uphill with a lot of our own efforts. Yet, when we have experience and understanding of God’s love in our lives, it overflows to others in a way that cannot be contained. Almost as if we can’t help ourselves from showing kindness and being gracious to others.

So how do we get the experience?

We experience God’s love, through what we also love. And we share His love, by also sharing what we love with others. Then, all we do can be done in love.

There are priceless things in your life that give you glimpses into God’s love for you. Maybe it’s every morning you see the sunrise, or spending quality time with your family, or sitting quietly next to a fireplace. Maybe it is found when you enjoy the freedom of driving on the open road, or studying scripture while sitting in nature, or listening to anointed praise and worship songs during a walk through the neighborhood.

We need to regularly get into God’s presence and into His Word. But we also need to invite Him into the things we love. Like any relationship, we find quality time in doing things we love. We cannot limit God to only experience His love when we spend time at church or in scripture. We need to find Him in other ‘regular’ or ‘daily’ things as well. But we cannot exclude ourselves from His Word or the gatherings of His people either, for that is where we find deeper truth and fellowship. We need to spend time with God (any time and any place), and we need time with other people. Or how else will we understand the ways love works practically between ourselves, others, and God?

David was an outdoorsman. He loved the mountains, the fields, the pastures, the rivers. He was a shepherd first. And later he became king. As such he also dwelled in the city and lived in a palace. David knew the goodness of God, but not because he had all the good things in life. As seen earlier, he had his share of trials throughout his life, but he stuck close to God, and even through it all managed to experience the love of his Father. David could man-up, because he was in love with and in the love of God.

When we find refreshment in God’s presence, we can bring refreshment to others. So, let’s man-up, being in love with God and bringing the love of God to others.

Meditations on Manning-up:

- What is your understanding of God’s love for you? Why do you perhaps find it difficult to believe and trust this?

- How can you discover, or rediscover, this love of God and be refreshed by it? Which things refresh your soul that you can invite God into?

- What do you need to pray for today?