Meting Needs

Over the weekend, I attended a women's retreat at my home church in Montgomery, AL with my mom and my sister. It was a great time of fun, food, chocolate, and teaching.  The weekend was "Loving Well" a retreat teaching series by Beth Moore. We watched 4 teaching sessions on love and the people in our life that we are called to love. 

People in our lives typically fall into four categories: joy, testy, foe, stranger. Joy is easy to love, Testy is difficult to love, Foe is impossible to love, and Stranger only comes in our life randomly.

I was challenged in each area, especially testy, however some things Beth said about loving "stranger" really impacted me.

Loving stranger..."is an opportunity to love with no strings attached and to love not for what we can get back for it"

"Loving a stranger relieves us of the burden of self-absorption"

So often our first thought is to witness to a "stranger" when by meeting their needs first its sets a better stage for them to receive the truth of the gospel. David also challenged the students with this idea at SHIFT this weekend. The Lord has really challenged me to be more aware of the needs in peoples lives and share the gospel with them through meeting those needs!