LOVE NOTES

Hello my darling gist partner.

I pick my pen from the basket of love to write to you 😊. 

Happy new month!

How the new month meet you? I pray that you continue to enjoy God's divine direction in this month. 

Welcome to today's gist. 

Dem don write you love letter before? Okay, maybe not a letter because of the times we live in, so dem don send you love message (text, email, WhatsApp etc) before? I'm talking about intentional notes oo, not the 'shoot your shot' kind. How did getting such a letter make you feel? 

It's even more special when it's from someone you actually know and maybe like too. For me, intentional notes, of any kind, are such a treasure for me because they are a testament to the fact that the person was thinking about me. 

There's something I say about the people in my life; that each one is a special love note from God to me. It feels like every time God wants to show me a new dimension of His love, to let me enjoy another facet of His love, He sends someone into my life. This has been my belief for a couple of years and I recently found something in scriptures that gave me backing to my belief. 

One day, I was reading and saw something from Paul's second letter to the Christians in Corinth. In the third verse of the third chapter, he tells them "...and you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts." (RSV)

When I read that, what kept jumping out at me was "...YOU ARE A LETTER FROM CHRIST…."

Yes! You! You're a letter from Christ! 

You know what a letter does? A letter conveys the intent of its writer to the reader. That means that when God wants to tell a person a thing, He sends you. You are the one tasked with the job of showing the person what Christ's love looks like.

There's something that the E-version of the Amplified Bible on YouVersion does; whenever the word love is used in the New Testament, especially in the epistles, it goes further to explain that this love is usually not a "feeling thing", it's an "action thing". So the command to love is one that must be obeyed irrespective of how you're feeling. So when we say that we are love letters from Christ, God is not looking actually at how you're feeling towards the person but on how you're acting in respect to that person. 

And the verse goes further to state that you are not written on tablets of stone but on the tablets of human heart. Ever heard the saying that people may forget what you did or said but they will never forget how you made them feel? That's true. Time will eventually dull the memories but it would nothing to the feelings. So when people think about you, what feelings do their thoughts evoke? Do you realize that because you profess Christ, it will somehow affect the feelings about Christ that are evoked in them because they will unwittingly, and at some level, relate how you made them feel to how their idea of who Christ is and what He does. 

So you see this "drop God one side" mentality, na for your head e dey oo! The other person no drop God anywhere! They'll carry the feeling and translate it to God.

For everyone you meet, you're a love note from God to them, what message are you passing?

And then there are the love notes God has sent to you. Have you ever been in dire need of anything; a hug, a word of encouragement, money, advice, a smile, prayers… and someone just out of the blue sends it? Sometimes it is when it comes that you realise you needed it. That happens because the God who loves you sends you a little love letter in that moment to remind you that you're the apple of His eyes.

And you see these little love notes, they're all around you! God is that intentional about making sure you feel His love. 

So do you treasure these love notes God sends to you? Or do you treat them like trash? How do you regard them? And how do you show your regard? Do they know how blessed you feel to have them in your life? Do YOU even know how blessed you are to have them in your life? 

So I'm throwing open a challenge, two challenges actually, this month: first, make a point to send a note of appreciation to every love note from God to you, make a schedule and ensure that by the 31st of October, every love note has received a note of appreciation from you; secondly, make a point of duty to actively reach out to someone who you're not exactly 'chummies' with, be a love note from God to that person this month. And don't forget to tell me all about how it goes in the comments. 

Let me begin by telling you my dear gist partner that you're one of the most beautiful love notes God has written to me, having you come in to check out gists on the blog is something I'll never take for granted. 

NLS HOT GIST: it's exactly 29 days to my Bar Finals! If you ask me why I feel as chill as I feel considering the fact that I also feel like I barely know anything, all I can tell you is that Christ has given me the peace that passes human understanding. Also, it's CLASFON week on Campus today and really all I can say about that is, "I wonder how people derive joy from anything outside God!" Because God is such a Joy Giver!!!

Well, that is that about that as far as that is concerned, may God help us to value the love letters He sends to us and to be proper love letters to the people around us. 

See you next week. 

Love,

Achenyo. 

PS. We're in the final quarter of the year, it's injury time! Bear down harder, you can still achieve those things you set to do for 2024. God is your help.