I may not be a smart man, but I know what love is

Sitting in a coffee shop, relaxing with a book and a delicious latte I couldn't help but notice as I looked out the window that it was raining sideways. For those of you who have spent any time with me know that Forrest Gump is one of my favorite movies. And one of my favorite parts is when Forrest is describing all of the different types of rain in Vietnam. "One day it started raining, and it didn't quit for four months. We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath." It makes me laugh every time!

Ok, back to real life... It's the middle of summer and it's been over one hundred degrees forty days or something insane like that in the past two months. But for some reason as I watched this rain I had that feeling of an early fall day; the crisp and sometimes first bitter cold of the year kind of day. In that moment I was overwhelmed with how the love of Jesus is like that moment you step in from that cold. Your bones begin to warm back up and your teeth begin to stop chattering. The "I'm frozededed" feeling wears off and you can look out, almost in spite and say, "oh bitter enemy, you have lost your sting. I am warm. I am safe..."

Jesus, you have saved me from the little bitty stingin' rain... and the big ol' fat rain. The rain that flew in sideways. And the rain that sometimes even seemed to come straight up from underneath.

When the rain comes again, and it will, we are safe with you...

LIFE as I know it. (I think)

Hopefully this will make sense, but if I wait until everything is worded how I really want, it won't EVER get done.

I'm in a very odd place of life... the place in between my most recent home and family, and now transitioning back into my real home and family, but in the effort to transition out of that home and family into another home and family. (does that all make sense?) I'd like to say it's complicated, but it's really not if I don't allow it to be. For me it has just been my life for the last few years. Transition and flexibility... transition and flexibility.

For the past three years I've been involved with an organization called Youth With A Mission in Denver, CO. As a staff member I was not only able to spend a lot of time with our students and other staff challenging each others growth in Christ and also in life, but I was also given amazing opportunities to be a part of and also lead outreaches around the states and the world. I was able to as a student and staff member, travel doing "ministry" to Thailand, Haiti, Brasil, San Francisco and Las Vegas. There's no way to even explain in a blog entry all of the AMAZING things that God did in my life during these last three years.

Aside from traveling and doing "ministry," the last three years was just an awesome time of drawing closer to God. I did my DTS in the spring of 2008. So I went from this place of "knowing" who God was, to really being in a living and active relationship with him, then into growing like a child, and now it feels as if I'm in this teenage mode sometimes... I yell at God and wonder why I can't do what "I" want, but then he also gives me these freedoms that I feel I don't know what to do with. So I yell at him for that too. haha He's a great father and friend though, and he's so faithful to be with us always, and then to show us in the end what has been going on.

A big thing I feel I've learned (and still learning daily) in the last few years with God is that yes, he loves for me to ask him what should I do or what do you want? But that he then says, thank you for asking, but what do you want and love? What are you passionate about? Where is your heart burning? You know my heart and my character, now be free. To steal a quote from William Wallace's father on Braveheart, "Your heart is free. Have the courage to follow it."

One of the things God has really highlighted in the last couple years was different issues of injustice going on around the world. Isaiah 58 has basically become my life chapter. vs 6. starts with this:

⁶ “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness^[a] will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
⁹ Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
¹⁰ and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
¹¹ The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
¹² Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

I have decided to give my life for Jesus and to spend myself on behalf of the hungry and to satisfy the needs of the oppressed in hope that the light will rise in the darkness...

Love...

When we say we "love" God, do we really mean it? Is it a real love? Do we even know what we're saying? Do we understand the statement we're making, that we "love" the infinite God of the universe. The one who knew us before we were even formed. Do we understand a love that absolutely crazy?

I think the answer to that question is not how much do I love God, for yes, of course I do, did you see how much I gave up for him? But the exact opposite, do I know how much HE "loves" me?

I think it's probably the normal thing to do when faced with trying to love the most amazing and loving person in the world... How could they love me? How could they see everything I've done and still say, I love you and want to be with you. I don't care that you have screwed up fifteen million times and will continue to screw up for the rest of your life, I love you. You are mine. You are loved. You don't have to perform. You don't have to meet a quota. You don't have to have all the answers. You don't have to have all the questions... Will you let me love you? Will you let my unconditional love wash over your life? Will you allow me to woo you? Will you allow me to love you?

Can we even understand that? Often, in my feeble mind I am not able to understand that God loves me for me. But my heart... oh my heart often has this encounter with God where I just lose it. I was driving down the road earlier tonight and the song, "How He Loves Us" came on and I just wept...

I can't explain this love.

I hope to share it with the world though.

Am I Different?

I have been in a place lately of anything and everything completely breaking my heart for the lost and broken... My heart literally hurts most days, and sometimes for an extended period of time. I have gone back and forth on who God is. What's his character when it comes to the heart. How does he view my passions and desires? They are to feed the poor and bring hope and joy to the hopeless and the broken. Where is this place that needs the most love? Honestly, probably everywhere in it's own ways...
Is the prostitute in Thailand any different than the prostitute on the corner in Vegas? We could look at it this way and say yes; the prostitute half way around the world has no other option, she can support her family with this. While the prostitute in Vegas, she has other options, she is just supporting a desperate need for heroin to hit her veins.

Am I any different?

Am I better than either of these girls?

Am I more deserving of love because I have been rescued?

I would say that they are both more deserving than myself. It is the sick who need a doctor... I have my problems, but i'm too prideful to even see them. My eyes have been opened, yet I do not allow myself to see. I put a blind fold over my eyes. I cover my ears. I stop the flow of life to and from my heart... If I do not love them, than I do not love Jesus. How can I say that I love Jesus with all of my heart and not give everything that I have to those he cared for most. Even more painful than the thought of hurting Jesus, is the actual, physical pain felt when God has given me just a glimpse of what true pain feels like...

May I be your vessel of love. Will you send laborers into the painful, bloody, screwed up, broken, shattered, lovely, smiling, dancing, searching, harvest...

May I be your vessel of love.

Here am I. Send me.

hope...

I find that hope is one of the hardest things to grab a hold of and even harder to hang on to. In an instant the joy and peace which was so strong can be gone. I can find myself driven to a place of despair, completely unaware of how I got there. I was reading the book of Job this morning and in chapter 42 vs. 5 Job says, My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.

Whatever I have to go through to see you with my eyes and not just hear of you with my ears, I will do it. I want to see Him, not just hear of him. I will hold on to the truth of who I know you are and not how I feel... you are God, and I am not.

food

When you look into the eyes of a starving child who has just been given a little bit of food, you can see that it meant so much.

dancer

She loved to dance. She was beautiful...