It has been hard to be in this transition period
of school almost being done and expectations of entering the grown up world.
Most people my age are getting ready to look for jobs, enter grad school, looking
for someone to spend their life with, and I know I am different. Most of my
time is spent on my knees asking God what is next, flipping through memories of
where God has begun to give me a passion for the lost, the hurting, the
trafficked, and the weak in other nations. Every time I close my eyes, images
flood my mind of the men, women, and children that have impacted my life
half-way across the world and that God has given me a glimpse of how He loves
them. I’m not sure if you’ve ever experienced that overwhelming feeling of love
for someone you don’t even know. To be drawn by the Spirit to someone, and to
instantly feel their burdens and want to just share that love you know is
coming from Jesus with them. I’ve been blessed to experience this several times
now- first with Julito in Guatemala, then Ivania that I met on a dirty street
in front of her prison of a bar in Puerto Barrios, orphans on the streets of
Guatemala, Honduras, and Thailand, so many women in the bars on Bangla, and
girls in my generation that He has placed in my life. It’s hard to explain the
feeling, but I can tell you it is overwhelming and beautiful.
As the Lord teaches me more of what it looks like
to tune my ear to Him and give the Spirit the reins, I realize that this is
something that God created to be natural for us to do. We were made to
naturally love others, to feel his heart beat faster when His precious daughter
in Thailand finally understands her worth, to feel the sorrow He feels when the
fatherless wander the streets in search for food and hope, and to love others as
He does right where they are at. Whether I am in the states or in a distant
nation I know this is what he calls me to, he beckons me to himself so that I
can love His children and share how He feels about them.
2 Corinthians 5:15-16 simply says this: “For the
love of Christ controls us…From now on, therefore, we regard no one according
to the flesh.” Reread that one more time. Christ’s love controls us so that we
don’t treat anyone as their flesh is revealing in the moment. That means we
treat others like they are already living at the maximum potential for God,
even if they don’t know Him. Can you try to wrap your mind around that concept
with me? When you listen to what God has to say about a person and then you call
that out in them- you are regarding them as Christ does. Can you imagine how
radically different this world would look if we put that into practice? We are
called to naturally love others like Christ does—not just me but you too are
called to love those around you to the potential of righteousness found in the
King of Kings. We are all that God says we are- so take the challenge and start
calling that out in the people around you with me.
I may not know right now where God is going to
call me to long term- or even what my life will look like in 6 months (because
it will be drastically different- how could it not following the adventure my
savior has for me?!) but I do know that I am going to continue to love those
around me deeply as The Spirit leads.
