Love - Proverbs 15:17

"Better is a dinner of herbs where love is
than a fattened ox and hatred with it."
                                        -Proverbs 15:17

We were created for an environment of love, inside and out - to love and be loved. We don't function well, nor do we fulfill our primary purpose when we are outside our prescribed environment.

Yet we fail to cultivate it.

We think it is normal for our surrounding to be arbitrarily chosen. Perhaps this is why our spiritual growth is so sporadic...

We surround ourselves with pure love, fellowship with the Saints, and Christ-honouring worship, and we find ourselves in a "mood" to confess sin, to pray with one another, to encourage. Then we fill our minds and surround ourselves with superficial junk and wonder why we're not in the "mood" to pray and praise Him?

Our attitude is not arbitrary. It is directly affected by the environment we have chosen. If we were more intentional about where, how, and with whom we spend our time, I think we would experience more measured, steady spiritual growth.

Are we surrounded by truth? By His Word? By friends who speak it without reservation? Do we seek an environment of beauty and order, or do we settle for the ugly, crass, and chaotic?

God is a being of order and beauty. The souls that He has come to inhabit cannot thrive - nor barely survive - in a mess.

Not to say that there isn't room for spontaneity, or last minute changes in plans, but are we seeking an environment that promotes quiet and rest in the Lord, or is our environment defined by stress?

He has called us higher... and deeper.