Furious Love.

The other night I had a beautiful opportunity to watch the Furious Love documentary with some wonderful women of the Lord.  If you haven’t seen it, you should check it out:

http://www.furiouslovethemovie.com/

This truly challenged me to delve further into the truth of what Jesus’ love looks like, what ministry is.  The Church has become great at gathering money, going on a mission trip once a year or so, and embracing roles of ‘ministry.’  While I’m not condemning these things, I do believe the heart of the Gospel message goes so much deeper than this.  Heidi Baker says, “Ministry, however, is simply about loving the person in front of you.  It’s about stopping for the one and being the very fragrance of Jesus to a lost and dying world...ministry is simply you loving like Jesus.” I wonder what the world would look like if the Church truly stopped all of the judging and saving face; thought that may sound harsh, I always recall what Mother Teresa said: “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” 

Tonight I had such an opportunity to decide whether to love or to judge.  After going out to a late dinner, some new friends and I returned to campus around midnight.  A homeless man came asking for money to buy medicines; after many brutal assaults, he was left with damaged lungs, kidneys, and spleen.  He showed us gun shot scars, knife scars, and even deeper---spiritual scars.  We began to pray over him and God overwhelmed me with His heart for Mike.  God’s yearning was so incredibly desperate for His child, to see him made whole, to surrender to the embrace of His Father’s arms, to see the chains of bondage fall off as His Spirit surrounded him.  I hugged Mike, who to most in our society would appear to be an untouchable.  In most cases, fear rules, whispering, “He’s probably on drugs.  He’s probably a thief.  Look, he admitted to being in jail!  He’s using you.”  But no, LOVE FIGHTS BACK.  2 Timothy 1:7 says, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”  Love Himself whispers with conviction and peace, “This is my son, whom I love.  I died and rose again that he might have abundant life.  Love him as I do, hold him physically as I do spiritually, speak my Truth into his spirit.  He’s being tormented, and I have called him to a life of freedom and relationship with me.  Be vessels of my Love, pour into Him.  I am mighty to save!  I am Jehovah Jireh!  I am Abba, sweet Abba.  Love him, for I long to see him come to Me and be made new, be made whole.” 

Mother Teresa also said, “Jesus found me and chose me.  A strong vocation is based on being possessed by Christ.  He is the Life that I want to live.  He is the Light that I want to radiate.  He is the Love with which I want to love.  He is the Joy that I want to share.  He is the Peace that I want to sow.  Jesus is everything to me.  Without Him, I can do nothing.”  When we come to an understanding of God’s love for us, we cannot help but want to embody that Love and exude it to those we encounter.  The very Spirit of Love dwells within us.  Bob Goff said, “Love isn’t as risky as apathy.”  When we truly begin to abide in the depths of God’s heart and in the fullness of His love, apathy won’t even be in our vocabulary.  Love will be the very overflow of our hearts.

 Something that truly struck me in Furious Love was that Darren Wilson spoke of not having an agenda to ‘convert’ someone, but simply to love them.  Imagine if Jesus had said to those whom He healed, “I’ll heal you, but only if you repent and receive God first.” No, Jesus’ love is the very vehicle by which people are drawn into the love of God.  Shane Claiborne sums it up perfectly: "But what had lasting significance were not the miracles themselves but Jesus' love. Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead, and a few years later, Lazarus died again. Jesus healed the sick, but eventually caught some other disease. He fed the ten thousands, and the next day they were hungry again. But we remember his love. It wasn't that Jesus healed a leper but that he touched a leper, because no one touched lepers."  Jesus sought out the untouchables of society, those who were lost and hurting and broken and messy.  He rebuked the spirit of religion and the spirit of apathy.  He taught radical love, extravagant sacrifice, and merciful understanding. 

I’m sure Mike valued our money, food, and drink, but I know what really impacted him was Christ’s love.  Why?  Because as Mike walked away from us, he said, “I’m going to go with a spirit of joy, because 5 people stopped and cared.  God I hope they always care for me.”  Wake up, Body---that’s what the world is crying to us!  CARE!  LOVE!  1 John 2:6 says, “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.”  God is love.  Jesus in the manifestation of God’s love. 

Love fights back.

Love wins.

“But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd.  Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few.  Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.’”  Matthew 9:36-38

“And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.”  Ephesians 5:2

There is no such thing as a lukewarm Lover.

ALL things new.

One year ago, actually June 30 to be specific, I broke my neck.

I sometimes forget that.

You see, I love a God who makes all things new, who trades ashes for beauty.  When my doctor came in after my MRI last year, he was prepared to rush me to another hospital in a bigger city for emergency surgery.  We prayed.  An hour later, they decided to wait on surgery and send me to get checked out by a specialist.  God’s sweet mercies had only just begun.

This is the injury I sustained (from a trampoline accident, ha): between my C5 and C6 vertebrae, the disc had ruptured, completely obliterated, against my spinal cord, where fluid was beginning to gather.  My C5, C6, and C7 vertebrae had somehow been smashed upon one another as well.  What’s most dangerous about this was the pressure on my spinal cord; I could’ve very well been paralyzed for life if I had slightly moved wrong.

What makes the fact that I can walk today so incredible is that I slept on my broken neck an entire night before going to get it checked out.  I, in all reality, should have and could have very easily been paralyzed after breaking my neck and then going to bed, merely thinking I threw out my neck horribly. 

I spent the majority of last summer confined on my couch in a neck brace, in the physical therapy center, and in appointments and procedures with my specialist in St. Louis.  There were days I would cry to God in fear that I wouldn’t get to go to college in time, that I would never lose the pain that rendered me physically useless. 

God, in all His goodness, taught me an important lesson: He is in control, He is more powerful than any situation I could ever encounter, and He loves to display His love in making our brokenness into a miracle.  I should have been in a neck brace for months; I was out of it in a month and a half.  The pain that plagued my damaged nerves, muscles, and spine continued into the first few months of college; one night I got prayer, and I didn’t take a pill for the pain ever again after that night.  I had been taking a pill every night for three months by that point for the immense pain.

Today it dawned on me, as I dashed across the street in Hillsboro Village, how incredibly blessed I am to be here. Right now.  How a year ago I cried myself to sleep, wondering if I would ever get this precious opportunity to move to Nashville and pursue what God has put on my heart.   Most people who sustain the injury I did are laid up for a year or so, with many struggles and issues.  I guess the reason I’m writing this blog is to remind myself of that especially.  God is SO FAITHFUL to the cries of our heart; He always knows what is best, He always provides.  Jehovah Jireh has a plan and purpose for my life.

Praise You, God, for Your love, for, as it says in the book of Hosea, transforming my trouble into hope, my mess into a message, and my mourning into joy.  Praise You, worthy Father, for Your everlasting love.  You are so faithful, so infinite, so GOOD.  I love You, and I pray that I will use every door You open for me to bring You glory. in Jesus name, Amen.

“I will give her her vineyards from there, and the Valley of Achor (trouble) as a door of hope; She shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, as in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.”      (Hosea 2:15)

“Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.”  (Rev. 21:5)