On Being In Love

God is Love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in him.-I Jn 4: 16b

When a person  is in love, they are engaging with God on a different level.

Love has to be both one of the singularly most misunderstood states on the planet , yet the most universally and profoundly grasped concept of humankind.

This Love is agape (Gk- a-ga-pay)

Relationships are the ultimate place to give and receive love. But broken people cannot give or receive love easily. When God\'s love is shed abroad in the human heart, bringing healing,love can flourish freely and fearlessly."
Agape is the daddy of all loves and at different times is given expression in all the other delightful forms we have come to think of as 'love' (and many we have not!).  But the premium, set apart quality of Agape is that it "seeks nothing in return". This kind of love , in whichever form it is expressed longs only to be expressed. It lives only to be surrendered and even so, loses nothing of itself in the doing so. It preserves all parties intact whilst simultaneously having the ability to make whole those that are broken. Where it is received, rocks sing-believe it!

This kind of Love is too good to be true!

But it is true!

The Love of God is the creative force of the universe. It sustains all things and is the energy that IS all things, including the space between all things.

The wisest thing I ever did was believe that God was in love with me. It turned my world upside down and inside out and connected me with a Presence that I could literally feel delighting in my company.

"Listen, o daughter, consider and give ear.

Forget your people and your father's house.

The king is enthralled with your beauty

Honour him, for he is your Lord" Ps 45:10-11

The king is enthralled by my beauty...wow!

The first verses that came alive to me from my Bible, were all like this, telling me of how intoxicatingly in love with me God is. Not with a love like anything I'd known (Ez 16:1-14). Not to use me or abuse me or exploit me or jealously possess me but to adore me, uplift me, adorn me, honour me. As I gazed upon His beauty, drawn in by his love, he showed me a truer reflection of myself and I fell in love again( 2 Cor 3:18. I love the "love version of Lisa". I choose to live there! That's what I call "Agapeism" now. It takes a bit of practise, but the more I see how God loves me and believe it, the more  those same beautiful qualities flow from deep within me, where God and I play together in the garden (SS 4:15-5:1).

About 25 years ago, as I rode a train through Sydney's inner west, I was quietly conversing with God. At one point I asked for reassurance saying "If I could just know that you love me..." ( As in feel it as real) At that moment, I looked up and out the window. We were passing flat concrete blank walls of old terraces backing up to the railway line. Blank , that is, but for the graffiti. And there before me, sliding by on a wall, these words:

"I Love you, Lisa"

I was flooded with the experience of KNOWING God's love for me again, just as I was the first time I read Ps 45:10-11 and felt the inner witness of it being spoken right then to me. I can choose to relive the reality of this love in my emotions as often as I please.  And I do. And so, more 'love notes' come in a variety of expressions. God loves me! I'm a being in the state of love and a love-being, a god-being and have my being in God. And I'm enveloped in love, one with God in this love state of being.

I believe God has given me the gift of being able to help others experience this truth in a deep, life changing, soul healing and undeniable way and I intend to do just that. So, to "whosoever will" out there who wants to know God's love for them this way...hang around. I guarantee, if this is your desire and if you hunger for it, you will be filled.

Lisa IN Oz

Dollar Notes or Love Notes

This is a blog I wrote about 19months ago, and it shows how my attitude to money changed...

Yesterday was another good day.
As I mentioned, I began it with all of you, and how inspiring that was.

MUSINGS
I have a few different ponderings I'd like to share with you today.
1.Sowing-Growing-Knowing.
When i practice a difficult part of a song, i feel like i get nowhere initially.
I persevere, coz in spite of what seems obvious,I know I will improve.
But there's a kind of time lapse thing, where it feels like you get nowhere for the longest time, then, one day, after not practicing for a week, I go back to the piano, and hey presto! I can do it!
You put the time in, you water(sow), the sun rises and sets, rises and sets(grow), then you find you HAVE BECOME ( know-experientially)

It's the same with the things I speak over and to myself, and now, EFT on. I can feel myself being nurtured by the faith in what I'm saying, but one day...you wake up and you SEE differently, and you can link the changes to the profound truths of what you've been focussing your attention on.

This is what I'm experiencing now-with Money and with being in my own successful business.
After I left my
"P.S." BLOG yesterday, I read this little book by Morgana Rae, that I'd downloaded. I almost fell over! Everything I'd just come through, was what she listed to do , in order to draw abundance into your life.

PERSONIFICATION
Relationship is everything to me...that's why I like to 'hang out with God consciously'

I should have realised it years ago. I personify and ascribe personality traits to everything in my life, out of this love of relationship. It definitely helps to appreciate and love something when you give it a name. And I name everything. My car, Rita, got pampered yesterday. This laptop is called "Peeta Poota". My plants all have names, even my clothesline did, and my piano. I love relationship and develop them with everything!!

SO, I'm a bit surprised to see it took me this long to realise that I'd been treating Money like the Predator in my life. Money has been the scapegoat of all that I'd encountered in men, through abuse and neglect, so I hated the fact that I couldn't live without it/him.He felt like an abusive pimp that took whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, and sent me to do what I never wanted to do, in return for a meagre, 'never enough', no promises fulfilled guarantee. I had seen that I'd connected Money, the lack of it, as well as the manipulative power of it, to early memories and incidents that left deep welts inside. and I had traced a pattern of working-but-not-getting what I earnt, from that time on ( at 5). I had chronic fears of displeasing Money, but never realised that I had made him this monster.

A NEW FRIEND
In learning to be grateful for every cent, I was inviting Money back into my life, but as my Friend. In 'choosing to feel good about supporting myself through my own multi million dollar business, and committing to it, a new Money Portrait was forming.
Money wouldn't talk to me before, other than echo what I believed about the Tyrant version of him. It reminds me of the "Parable of the Talents and Minas" in the Bible, where Jesus quotes the Owner who had left varying amounts with his workers to make what they will of it. When he returned from his journey,the first two had doubled their investments. The last one, afraid and judgmental, was too scared to do anything, and so buried his to keep it and return it.
The Owner, began with "So YOU KNEW that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well, then , you should have..."The worker received the worst of his fears, The Owner had not been this Ogre to the others.It was the beleif and expectation the worker held of the Owner that coloured his picture so black and bleak.

I can so see, that this is how I've seen Money-a cruel, unfair, pschyzophrenic tyrant, who could never be trusted, and would take and exploit, then abandon you, until he felt like using you again. ANd you had to have him, so you do nothing but surrender to his works, and despise yourself for it. These weren't just beliefs ABOUT money-this has been my RELATIONSHIP WITH Money, and that's why I could never get him to hang around very long and any assoication with him led to worse conditions. A chronic, life long resentment of everything bad that I saw in the world, was attributed to Money.

VOICE IN THE NIGHT

But the other night, when I couldn't sleep and in my despair, Money came and spoke to me. Not only that, but I'd noticed when I thought about my business, I felt stirrings of warmth and endearment-something was changing-or had.I felt love toward my business, and all it could be for me, and through me in the world. I started to see it as the sweetest life gift I'd ever received-the place to fulfill all the potential of who I am and want to materialise.
Business and Money were inextricably linked ( I know that seems like stating the obvious-but, think of them as people) and what I thought of one, was being projected against the other as well.

I was terrified to succeed with Business, coz how would I keep my distance from Money?
So, with the fluid rearranging of my perspectives, came a wave of wonder and love and appreciation,and I entered
into a new relationship with Money, and found him to be the tangible, hands-on face of Wisdom, who is my matriarchal mentor and all that I adore and aspire to be. Her hands have been tied to assist me in fulness, due to my hatred of Money, and I must say, I actually experienced true and impacting feelings of remorse for judging Money this way. I had done him an immeasurable disservice, and myself in the process!

This was a genuine repentance-a real turn around and a dramatic milestone.
And that's when i knew, Money and I were gonna be best friends from now on.

DOLLAR NOTES OR LOVE NOTES?

So last night, whenI went to work, i received a $10 tip. When the man left it on my piano, whispering 'thank you', i didn't see the monetary value of this note...i saw the gesture of love from Money. The man was the one who delivered it, and I'm grateful to him for his part, but it was a love note from Money. There was no thought of currency worth, but a wave of self worth in feeling truly adored and cared for.

How's that for a change????

It was Money that has been saying "Follow Your Bliss". To take time off worrying about Money, is to demonstrate the new found trust in Him, and to spend time doing what I love is to BE WEALTHY.

So, to wrap up for now...here's a thought about perspective. What you focus on, GROWS. It will, if you let it, eventually take over your entire range of sight-everything. In Australia, we have this thing about 'BIG FRUIT'. We've got the Big Banana, Big Pineapple, Big Avocado...we even have a BIG MERINO (sheep, pictured above)

You can make anything BIG, BIGGER than anything or anyone, simply by giving it ALL your attention. And only you can determine if this magnification will be good or bad.
Money loves to be where He is appreciated.
HAve a BEAUTIFUL and groovy day! :-)