As we left the orphanage for handicapped children, I began wondering what it was that was holding my heart back from overflowing with love for these broken children. For hours I revisited that room in my mind, thinking about the children’s faces, those who looked at me and smiled, those who looked at me and cried, those who hadn’t the ability to really look at me. I felt compassion for them, a sort of pain at wondering why the differences in our lives were so vast…but I knew that I didn’t LOVE them.
Why is my heart so cold? Isn’t this why I came on the Race in the first place, to love on orphans and widows and those in distress, like it says in James 1:27? I came on the Race asking to be broken for the brokenhearted, to be open to feeling their pain and the pain in God’s heart as he longs to make them his children. So what the heck am I doing here if not that?!?!?
I kept on whining like this to God, my frustrations at my lacking boiling over into near anger. I can look on them and feel sorry for their desperate situations…but I couldn’t make myself love them. And the last thing I want to be is a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. As I pondered all of this I began reading John 15, the chapter about Jesus being the vine and we being the branches. Certain parts jumped out at me, rearranging themselves in my thoughts…so here’s my John 15 remix for you.
“You are my friends if you do what I command. My command is this: love each other as I have loved you. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Now remain in my love. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. You did not choose me, but I chose you to go and bear fruit–fruit that will last. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”
I realized with a start why I haven’t been able to really love those orphans. It was because I wasn’t remaining daily fully immersed in Jesus’ love. Since we arrived in Vietnam, I have had difficulty finding a routine time during the day to spend completely alone with Jesus, to remain in his love so that I can go follow his command to love others, and in doing so to bear fruit. And since I wasn’t remaining fully in his love, I had no love to spare for the orphans…I couldn’t bear fruit in loving them…I could do nothing.
Well, I’ve put myself out there, sharing with you my failure and what I’ve learned from it. As the Lord has answered my questions and shown me the truth, and I have chosen to share this truth with you, I do so hoping that you will look at your own lives and ask the same question. Are you remaining fully in the love of Christ, where he wants you to be? Because without remaining in his perfect love, you will not be able to go out and bear fruit–fruit that will last.
Remain in Christ’s love. Bear fruit by loving others with his love. …There’s no other way.
