We’ve all heard this phrase before, but it wasn’t until one morning while doing ministry in the Ethiopian sun, surrounded by fields of grass, cows, and children playing that I learned what it really meant.
Ministry looks different every day, but this specific morning we were cutting grass and by cutting grass I don’t mean with a lawn mower. We cut with actual knives, so it’s a long process and the grass is more of a hay texture. It’s a fun time, plug in some tunes and cut away… while probably getting sun burned.
I was a few minutes in and a little girl came up to me, she stood by me for a while and watched as we exchanged smiles. I had never seen this girl before, she doesn’t live on our compound, so she must have been one of the workers kids or from a village. After a little while she sat by me and wrapped her small dusty tan skinned arm around mine.
While I cut, she sat there for moral support just smiling away. The way she showed love, there were no words. And there didn’t need to be. This is when I learned to love.
She didn’t have any clue who I was, but do we really need to know someone in order to love them? Do we really need to know their past or their present to love them? Do we need to speak the same language to love someone? Do we need to be the same color to love someone? Do we need a relationship with someone in order to love them? The answer is no. No language, no relationship needed, love is the language and the relationship comes after.
When we finished cutting grass I took her inside, gave her some water and we colored until she had to leave. I never saw her again but she taught me so much in the small time we had.
Ever since I have been learning what love looks like, loving like Jesus would. Jesus never had to say a word, He loved through his actions.
We don’t necessarily have translators all the time so speaking to people in a different country discouraged me, I never felt like I was doing something great. I couldn’t speak to people about Jesus like I wanted to, but I didn’t need to.
My pastor always said love is spelled
G-I-V-E and that’s been my focus.
Love can look like exchanging smiles when you walk by, saying hello and how are you in the little of their language you know, handing out cookies in the village even if you get dirty looks and turned down, buying a rose to hand to a lady who needed to feel beautiful and known, playing soccer with the street kids, sharing some of your water to a worker who is thirsty, sitting next to a homeless man or an addict who is shunned by his country, told he is nasty and not welcomed. Love is simply noticing the unnoticed and loving them despite who they are, what they’ve done, or where they’ve come from.
Love doesn’t have to be this big thing, to me, there is nothing spectacular about this everyday life I’m living, it is just about falling Jesus into the impossible, doing the uncomfortable, stepping out, and living fearless, doing the little I can and trusting Him with the rest. I can do nothing great or incredible, but as I follow God into the uncomfortable situations, He can work miracles in and through me. And He can do the same for you. We were created to change the world for someone. To serve someone. To love someone the way Christ first loved us, to spread His light. This is the dream and it is possible. Some days it can be difficult but that’s okay because the blessings far outweigh the hardships. God still uses flawed human beings to change the world. And if He can use me, He can use you.
Go out with the mindset of who can I love today, who can I love like Jesus does? Jesus stepped out into the unknown, to the people who hated him, to the people who were shunned and pushed away, to the beggars, the homes-less, the addicts, the crippled, the least of these. Step out of your comfort zone a little and love. It doesn’t have to be this huge thing, ask the man bagging your groceries how he’s doing today, tell your waitress she is beautiful and appreciated, lending a helping hand the old lady next door; who knows what Jesus could do in that moment.
