Love

           My heart is for the nations. I’ve felt the pull since I was a little girl and it has only increased over the years. I’m so encouraged by the lives of missionaries who have served the Lamb all over the world. They have seen the Lord’s hand and sought His face, healed the sick and set the captives free.

When I think of the radical Love shown us by Jesus, I think of these supernatural displays of Divine affection. I think of giving sight to the blind, feeding the hungry and healing the broken-hearted. When asked why I want to go to missionary school next year, one of my many answers is that I want to learn how to love. To really love. I’ve said this in the past assuming that this kind of radical love can only be learned in a falling-apart orphanage in the middle of a hot jungle. And to be honest, I believe I truly would enjoy fully giving myself to loving the lost over there. Way over there. Wherever that might be.

You know where I’m going with this. It’s hardly an original thought. But it finally seems to be sinking into my spirit, no matter how many years I’ve “known” it, and so I thought to put it on paper. 

I recently moved home after being on my own for a number of years, and I feel the tension of being a new creation in a far too familiar environment. As I prepare for my next season in life, which will in fact involve foreign missions, I am tempted to hide myself away from this old familiar world in my quiet times with the Lord, in my endless stack of spiritually edifying books, through my hobbies, and through various activities of worship that I love to and feel called to sacrifice to the Lord. Externally, this appears to be a great way to spend a summer of preparation and consecration, set apart and untouched, hidden and…un-touching. In the confines of my room, I am preparing myself for the next season of my life in which God will finally call me to love. Then. Not now. But this attitude couldn’t be farther from the will of God. Jesus despises an unwillingness to love in the now, for today is all we have.

I appreciate the life of Stephen, the first martyr and a powerful man of God. He positioned himself humbly before God and man. He began his ministry serving at the public tables. Hardly glamorous. Elizabeth Elliot, in her book Discipline, comments on his circumstance, “If Stephen had set his heart on the working of miracles and signs or on becoming a brilliant apologist, he would hardly have been willing to accept an appointment on the welfare board…But there was a need. He was called upon to fill it. He said yes. His heart was set on one thing: obedience to God. He was counted worthy to suffer because he was willing to serve. Stephen did not lift up his soul unto vanity, dreaming of attaining a place of high distinction in church history.”

His heart was set on obedience to the Master. It was his delight to obey. It was his delight to wait on tables. It is through this sacrificial worship that Stephen touched the heart of God and was later counted worthy to bring resurrection power to his environment, bedazzling his heavenly crown with the treasures of service and martyrdom. What an encouraging example! As I spend the next few months at home, I know that I have a powerful call on my life. Right here, right now. Every time I unload the dish washer, take out the trash, set down a book to play with my siblings, or give up sleep to pack four PB&J lunches, I’m releasing God’s glory in my home and on the earth. I really am! Living out of real love means living determined to serve, humbly positioned before the needs of others no matter who it is, where it takes place, or how anticlimactic or unrecognized the act might be. This kind of love is climactic. This kind of love is recognized, in Heaven’s Courts. “Yet what is due me is in the hand of the Lord, and my reward is my God.” Isaiah 49:4

In one of his sermons, Bill Johnson recalls that David the shepherd boy killed the lion and the bear in secret. No man witnessed his victory, yet His God did, and rewarded him for his courage and trust in the Lord. Similarly, true love flows out of a heart that is bare before an audience of One, longing to imitate Jesus and minister to His heart in the secret place, finding its only reward there. Killing a lion with bare hands and unloading the dishwasher for your mom are hardly comparable; however, both are heroic acts before the throne if done out of a pure and worshipful heart. God sees the motivation behind every act of service and the attitude backing every step taken. He will have no shallow love. He will not have a glory-seeking Bride. He calls her up every day to this standard of loving: un-exaggerated, unannounced, and holy.