Love…
I knew love was the key before I left but there’s something about placing yourself in a situation where you come face to face with injustice, hatred, sickness and poverty that changes the face of love. Love stops being passive and begins to demand aggressive action.
This month my team worked in Nepal among women who have been rescued from brothels in India where they had been sold, often by their own family members, simply to turn a profit. We worked with women but most of them were girls when the ended up there. Brothels prefer to take in girls between the ages of 10-11, virgins fetch a higher price, probably due to the fact that HIV and AIDS is such a big problem.
Love can’t stand by and let that happen. Love rattles the bars of their cages and raises its voice to make demands for their freedom. 1 Corinthians 13:4 tells us:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
Often this is the verse we turn to for our inspiration and understanding of love. We find ourselves drawn to this concept of a gentle, unassuming love. A love that endures much with an air of martydom and piety but is not an active love that grabs a sword and goes to war. And yet if we keep reading that passage verses 6 and 7 seem to advocate that kind of call to arms.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
I’m starting to see that the kind of love God demands from me is active. It gets involved. It reaches in to kiss the wounds of humanity, it paints itself like a warrior, grabs a sword and charges into battle for those who can’t fight for themselves.
What does it take to rejoice in the truth? To always protect? To always trust that God will lead and guide us as we move to take action? To always hope and never give in to defeat, to stand firm on the truth of God’s word and continue to demand justice with failure looming nearby? To always, always, always persevere?
Mirror Christ. Look like Christ. Be transformed into His likeness.
That is the goal, the transformation, I keep striving towards. It’s what I came on the race hoping to get closer to.
Do I look like Jesus?
I don’t know but I do know that I’m only going to get out of this race what put into it. My race has passed the halfway point. It happened way too fast and that in itself spurs me to action. I don’t want to look back in November and only be able to say that I’ve learned the safety speech on an airplane.
If I hope to truly look like Jesus it’s going to cost me something. It’s going to demand some radical investment in the people around me. It’s going to demand active love. I want to go home from the race exhausted but satisfied that I have given as much of myself away as I am capable of giving. I don’t want to waste a moment.
I have only 5 months left. God has been faithful to me and I am fully funded, there’s no threat of going home because of money. I leave for South Africa in 2 days. You’ve all been so amazing by supporting me financially, (truly, you’re awesome), now I need just need your prayer support to get me through.
Pray that God would continue to transform my life, mold me into the image of Christ and teach me how to truly love people. This is going to be an amazing 5 months!
