From Day 16...

Good thoughts as we celebrate Mother's day:

"...love is powerful, and so in our external lives it is love for other people that poses the biggest threat against loving God. This is what Jesus means when He says we can’t wholeheartedly follow Him unless we “hate” everyone and everything else.[i]  He doesn’t mean we should forget about our loved ones, but that we can love them best by loving God most. Human love seeks control in order to protect one’s own heart, but God’s love brings freedom, both for the one who loves and for the beloved."

"Once we accept the truth of God’s perfect love and sovereign power over the lives of our loved ones, releasing them to His care is actually a vast relief."

Day 16 goes on to say that, while our unholy attempts to control other people can wreak havoc in our external lives, the real battle happens in our hearts,  against our reluctance to release self-will.  No one says it better than Hannah Whitall Smith:

"The secret lies just here. That our will, which is the spring of all our actions, is in our natural state under the control of self, and self has been working it in us to our utter ruin and misery. Now God says, “Yield yourselves up unto Me, as those that are alive from the dead, and I will work in you to will and to do of my good pleasure.”  --Hannah Whitall Smith[i]

Take my will, and make it Thine; it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart, it is Thine own; it shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord, I pour at Thy feet its treasure store.
Take myself, and I will be ever, only, all for Thee.
 --Take My Life and Let It Be, Stanza 3[i]

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[i] Take My Life and Let it Be. Words: Frances R. Havergal, February 1874. Music: Louis J.F. Herold (1830). 

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[i] Hannah Whitall Smith, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, public domain. Smith’s public domain works can be accessed online at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library:  http://ccel.org

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[i] Matthew 10:37-39, Luke 14:26