http://vimeo.com/56299172
This was my Christmas.
Unbelievable.
The beauty of it is what God taught me this Christmas. First off, he rocked my conventions yet again on what I think to be the fullest joy. AGAIN! It's like I have a God who is for my deepest joy and values me or something. Anyways, joy for me on Christmas is rest. Relaxing with all parts of my family, drinking hot chocolate, watching movies, putting up lights, and letting the Lord just bless me with the glories of our American way of celebrating this season. It's beautiful. And on Christmas Eve our contacts, Tim and Mel, invited us to their house (which smelled of Christmas), and we got to do all of these things! We just rested and ate and ate and ate.
The next day…well…you saw the video. I was wrecked with joy, rest, peace, love ALL DAY! In my quiet time Christmas morning, while I just sat drinking coffee and listening to worship music, the Lord just showed up and filled me. I mean, FILLED me. Best. Gift. EVER!! Pick up your game Santa. There is nothing like His love. NOTHING.
So basically, I just overflowed with the glories of my heavenly Dad all day. What really blew me away was the eyes He gave me to see His great love for me in these kids. I walked away with 3 gifts on Christmas:
1.) God loves me in my dirtiness. When we chose and planned to love everything in these kids, we did not know anything about them. We chose to love them because we love. When we found them they were dirty, but the dirt was not a factor AT ALL! We had a gift to give these kids because we chose to give it to them. They had NO part but to respond in the only option that makes sense: to receive. Ephesians says that God chose us and saved us "…so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus." Come again? That's incredible news. Rejoice! Recieve! I am not loved by God because I'm clean! I'm loved by God because He loves me, and all he wants to do is show me, stains and all, an ever increasingly joyful eternity in his arcade. He's that good. If I can have the ability to love kids like this, I can't grasp how much an infinitely merciful God might love us.
2.) God loves his kids. My job on Christmas was to hand out coins in the arcade so the kids could play games. We played in that arcade for about 6 HOURS with unlimited coins! #childhooddreams I LOVED it. It gave me so much joy to see these kids that we chose to lavish affections and provide for we're enjoying their time. What's better is they gained so much joy from coming to the source (me) and receiving more coins for more fun. I LOVED that. I also enjoyed playing street fighter, and racing games, and shooting zombies with them.
God spoke to me there…
He told me that's exactly how he feels in our relationship! Whaaaattt?? He gets so much joy from watching me enjoy his "arcade" and blessings in life, he enjoys when I smile at him and praise him for who he is and what he's done, he even enjoys it when I'm dry and doubting and I run to the source for more coins. I can see now why he hates it when I run to other broken cisterns…it's heartbreaking. I would be so hurt if one of the kids went and decided that they could get the money on their own or from another person instead of the endless source! And I do that all the time! However, God is love and love is patient. There is grace for all of us because in Jesus Christ every spiritual blessing was open to us! He loves to provide just like I loved providing for our kids.
3.) We love because he first loved us. One of the most beautiful things I saw all day was the way these kids, who live off of almost nothing, gave freely. One kid even gave a blind woman outside the mall what little money he had because she was in need. It was incredible! What caused this? Love. When we provided these kids with over 100 dollars worth of presents, toiletries, and clothes, they realized that they were then freed up to give. Why? Because they were taken care of.
Gods love is so like this.
When we recieve the security and blessings that absolute acceptance and grace by the God of everything, we are so filled that we get to overflow. Jesus commands us to abide in his love. Why? He's the source…the vine. He is our freedom and has paid our debts forever. Thus, the Christian gets to spend his spiritual riches he's inherited from Christ sooooo freely! This is my life right now. This is what God is teaching me. The more I grasp the immeasurable riches of Gods love and abide in it, the more I've noticed how easy and completely natural it is to love people! What a lesson these kids reinforced for me!
Even at his birth Christ was revealing our worth and Gods incredible glory! He came down. The God of all became lowly like us! How much worth we must have in his eyes! More so…how worthy is God? Team Refuges response to Christs birth this year was to echo our glorious God, and to just love lavishly! To all who gave, you brought the kingdom! I'm amazed at the beauty of this Christmas, and though I really missed being home with my family, I felt like I lived an entire day in heaven. Loving like this is fun. I can see why God does it, even when the sacrifice is steep. He's incredible.
